Lords Sitting of 14 December 1926

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
SMALL HOQLDINGS AND ALLOTMENTS BILL
Returned from the commons, with the Amendment agreed to.
LEGITIMACY BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE LOED PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE EARL OF BALFOUR): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion of which Notice has been given.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXXIX be considered in order to its being suspended for the remainder of the Session.—(The Earl of Balfour.)
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I think this is a reasonable Motion, to make at this period of the Session.—
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

GLASGOW GOLDSMITHS COMPANY ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, Bill deemed to have been read 2ª and reported from the Committee.
Bill read 3ª, and passed.

JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS (REGULATION OF REPORTS) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD DARLING: My Lords, in asking your Lordships to read this Bill a second time I think it will be necessary for me to give a very short explanation of what
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it does. It is a Bill not unknown to your Lordships already, and therefore there is no need for me to expatiate upon its provisions. It may be well, perhaps, to give a short history of how this matter arose and of the necessity for this legislation.
In 1912 a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the publication of indecent, obscene, and demoralising matter, among other things, and it made a Report from which I will cite only one passage:—
"It may be necessary for the Legislature to strengthen the law further in the direction of published reports which are deleterious to public morals."
After that pronouncement of the Royal Commission naturally this question engaged the attention of many interested in the preservation of public morals, such as they are, and in 1923 Sir Evelyn Cecil introduced into the House of Commons a Bill which was called the Matrimonial Causes (Regulation of Reports) Bill. That Bill was referred to a Select Committee, who made a unanimous Report recommending legislation in that direction. The Bill which had been introduced by the title I have just mentioned was then amended and the title of the present Bill became the title of his Bill. To do him justice, may I say that this Bill which comes before your Lordships is Sir Evelyn Cecil's Bill? It was at his initiation that the proposal of legislation in this direction was made; and the Bill which he drew having no chance in another place at that time, he asked me if I would introduce it into your Lordships' House and that I did some time last year.
Your Lordships will remember, I dare say, that the Bill passed through all its stages in your Lordships' House and then went to the other House. It was introduced there but could not get much further last year, and therefore Sir Evelyn Cecil introduced the Bill in that House in the present year. That is the Bill which is now proposed for your Lordships' consideration, and I want to make it clear that it is almost word for word the Bill which passed this House more than a year ago. I have compared that Bill as it left your Lordships' House last year with the Bill as it now stands. The amendments and alterations are few and of no great importance. The Bill has passed through every stage in

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another place. It was there sent to the Standing Committee. It has been criticised and commented upon in every way. It is worth while, perhaps, to notice that before it got to that Standing Committee it was given a Second Reading in the other House, the numbers on the Division being 222 for the Second Reading and three against. It was supported on that occasion by the Government, especially by the Home Secretary; it was supported by Mr. Clynes and it was supported by Sir John Simon, and your Lordships will see from the figures that it had the almost unanimous assent of that House. I mention this to show your Lordships that the grave question with which you are asked to deal to-day is one in regard to which the public have manifested their opinion in no uncertain voice.
It is unnecessary, I think, that I should go through the Bill clause by clause and explain to your Lordships what it does. A member of your Lordships' House who sits near me proposes to offer some criticism upon it. If he does so he will, perhaps, explain the provisions to your Lordships and I will not do anything to detract from the interest of his speech. I proposed yesterday to give Notice that I would move the suspension of Standing Order No. XXXIX in order that this Bill might be passed through all its stages to-day.
LORD CARSON: Shame.
LORD DARLING: My noble and learned friend was not hero yesterday to make that remark; but the noble Earl who leads the Liberal Party in this House expressed himself, I think, as astonished at my temerity in making such a proposition.
LORD CARSON: Hear, hear.
LORD DARLING: There never was a time when it was more true that "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." Had I known better I might not have done that and, possibly, might not now have been addressing your Lordships. However, that Motion has been made to-day by the noble Earl the Leader of the House and the Standing Order which it would have been wrong on my part to attempt to suspend has actually been suspended, and all I desire now is to avail myself of the opportunity so afforded. I desire only to be a humble
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stowaway in the Government ship and I hope that I may receive the support of your Lordships for this measure. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord Darling.)
VISCOUNT BURNHAM: My Lords, the last thing I should wish to do is to stand between your Lordships' House and my noble friend Lord Weir, who is to move a Motion of great interest in regard to the industrial relations between employers and employed. But I would plead with your Lordships that it is not my fault, but rather that of my noble and learned friend who has introduced this Bill in so disorderly a way this afternoon. He has not even taken the trouble to explain its provisions, perhaps for the very good reason that there are some of them that no lawyer, especially one so competent as himself, could explain to the satisfaction of the House. He has become a sort of Legislator-General in this House, and I dare say a great deal will be taken from him for granted.
So far as I am concerned the only reason I speak is that I have some share of responsibility for the organisation of the newspaper Press in this country and throughout the Dominions, and I do not like this Bill to pass in silence concerning, as it does, not only the newspaper corporations but also a vast class of skilled persons whom they employ. I never realised more acutely than now the wisdom of what the late Lord Morley used to say, that everything in politics is a choice of evils, and I believe myself the balance of evil is in favour of passing this Bill. At the same time, I do not quite accept at the value attached to it by my noble and learned friend the support of public opinion of which he speaks. Public opinion, when we speak of it, is usually our own opinion writ large or the opinion of the clique in which we move. I do not think there has been any striking manifestation of public opinion. I am bound to say, however, that I believe this Bill will be passed with the acquiescence of the public, who are willing to see the experiment of judicial silence tried and proved.
The purpose of the Bill is to cover up our social sores and to hide them from the eyes of man. On the whole I think

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that is a good thing. I am not prepared to deny that the balance of public advantage is in favour of concealment. It is said that this Bill does not insist on matrimonial causes being tried in camera in future. You will permit me to say that that is a lawyer's distinction. As a matter of fact, speaking with some knowledge of my own trade, I can I think assure the House that matrimonial causes will not be reported at, all, except they are concerned with some persons of general notoriety or of high social place. Then, of course, the names will count and there is no doubt that advantage will be taken of the Bill. There the reporter will find himself in a maze of confusion and difficulty.
But, although these cases will not be reported here, it is perfectly certain that they will be reported as fully as ever in the United States of America and in our own Dominions. There was a divorce case not long ago in which a member of your Lordships' House was involved and there never was a time when the cables to Australia were so much loaded as then. I need hardly say that no restrictions such as the noble and learned Lord, with all the wealth of his experience of the criminal court might be able to devise, can possibly prevent those reports going to America or to the Dominions. They will be published there and I venture to think that a good many copies will find their way to this country. Some of the American papers will get a fresh circulation. I am not saying this because I wish it or approve of it, but it will undoubtedly be the case, as any body who is concerned in newspaper traffic knows very well.
One of the two reasons for which I approve, if I may say so, of the experiment being made, is that I believe the present system is very unjust as between class and class. The Divorce Court is a resort of people of means, or, at any rate, of some means. I firmly believe in Mr. Gladstone's adage: "We are all much of a muchness," and there is not much difference in sexual morality between one class and another. The cases of the poor, as we all know, are tried in the police courts and petty sessional courts and are settled under the Summary Jurisdiction Acts by way of separation and they do not appear in the public Press. On the other hand, divorce cases are largely reported
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and they give a sinister and oblique view, I believe, of the standard of sexual morality which prevails among the well-to-do people of this country and, therefore, because the system is unjust in its present working, I am bound to say I approve of the veil of silence being thrown to some extent over matrimonial cases.
I believe also that the present practice operates unjustly as between sect and sect. As we all know, in the case of those who are devoted to the Roman Catholic Communion, there can be no question of divorce. I do not believe for a moment that the standard of sexual morality is any higher in the countries where the Roman Catholic religion is not only professed but practised than it is here. It gives an unfortunate bias against this country that all over the world notorious cases of divorce should be quoted and published as if things were any worse here than they are abroad. Probably most of your Lordships will think that sexual morality is a fairly constant quantity. If we read the history of European morals from Lecky downwards we shall be inclined to attribute its proportions rather to material than to moral causes; at any rate, there is no doubt that comparison between countries where divorce is not only permitted by law but is recognised by society and those where it is not is very much to the disadvantage of our own country. But for that reason I do not and cannot believe that there will be any great reformation of public morals in consequence of the passing of this Bill.
Nothing is done to touch the other side of the picture. It is said that journalism is literature in slippers. At any rate, if you agree that journalism is literature, you have here no new censorship of the drama or of the novel. It is common knowledge—and the most rev. Primate will confirm me—that there have been protests, constant protests of late, rightly or wrongly, whether you take the moral or the artistic point of view, against many of the productions that are now being given on the London stage. It is said we have gone from licence to licentiousness. It may be so, but at any rate nothing is done in this Bill to influence it one way or the other. It is exactly the same thing with the fiction of our own time. You have only to read

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any of the great novelists of to-day to find that they give themselves a liberty of expression and a choice of subjects which possibly may find some precedent in the coarseness of an earlier age but is strangely at variance with the standards of Victorian times. My own belief is that when you shut out reports of matrimonial causes from the newspapers you will increase their currency on the stage and in the novel. What is mysterious will be seized upon with avidity by the writers of our time and used—for reasons that are obvious with actions for libel in prospect—not in relation to the actual persons to whom the incidents are attributed but to the types and characters which they represent.
It is for that reason that I am very doubtful about what this Bill will do, but because I believe Parliamentary opinion is in favour of it almost unanimously I certainly shall not think of opposing it. The Solicitor-General, very absurdly, in another place said it would be a good thing if this Bill brought the proprietors of newspapers more into contact with their employees. There are no newspaper proprietors left in his City. I regret to say I am a melancholy survival of the newspaper proprietor and that I am the only one of my class, so far as I know, in the whole of the Metropolitan area. Therefore the penalties, so far as they are to be visited on proprietors, will fall on my unhappy head alone. But when it comes to the reporters it is a very different thing. The reporting staff may be prosecuted for doing what I do not think any reporter, however competent, ought to be called upon to do
As your Lordships will see if you look at the Bill, it will be unlawful to print or publish in relation to any judicial proceedings for dissolution of marriage, for nullity of marriage, or for judicial separation, certain things and, under paragraph (b), a concise statement of the charges, defences and counter-charges in support of which evidence has been given is alone allowed. Who is to make that concise statement of the charges? The reporter, a man unskilled in the law, for whom my noble and learned friend will, therefore, possibly have some contempt, or at any rate supreme indifference. But it is the reporter who has to make a concise statement and there is no wonder that
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Lord Darling did not explain these provisions to your Lordships. I hardly think they would have commended themselves to your sense of justice or to your common sense.
The memory of the noble and learned Lord may be very good and the eloquence of the noble and learned Lord, as we know, is very considerable, but the debates in this House are not fully reported. At any rate they would be none the worse for repetition. Your Lordships might have forgotten the noble and learned Lord's arguments, and in any case I do not think he ought to have taken them all for granted. I would only say, in conclusion, that so far as I am concerned I hope this measure will make for the improved reputation of this country for social morality throughout the world, but I doubt it. I think it will only add to the opinion of the world that we are once more indulging in that smug self-satisfaction which so many people believe to be our principal characteristic.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, there are really, I think, two matters involved in discussion this afternoon—one, the merits of the Bill, and the other, the method by which it is being passed through the House. With regard to the merits of the Bill I am not so lukewarm a supporter as the noble Viscount. I think the Bill will do a great deal more good than he semis to imagine. But there was one remark lie made to which would venture, if I may, to call the attention of the Government. He was speaking on sex morality and equality between the two sexes. I would venture to ask whether the Government will take into consideration the question of having a general inquiry into the legislation of this country as it affects equality between the two sexes in order to see whether something might not be done to remove a certain number of grievances which undoubtedly do exist at the present moment. I only throw that out for consideration. Naturally it is not a matter on which I should expect an immediate answer.
I turn to the other question, which is the method of passing the Bill this afternoon. The noble and learned Lord who moved the Second Reading referred to the fact that yesterday I ventured to utter a word of caution. At that time I

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did not even know that there were going to be Amendments proposed by the noble and learned Lord. I really do think that it should have been found possible to put down Amendments desired before this afternoon. After all, the Bill was before your Lordships' House last year, it has been in another place most of the Session, there has been considerable discussion in another place and it ought to have been possible for any Amendment necessary to be introduced before the Bill reached this House three days before the end of the Session.
I do not myself propose to take any active step towards preventing the passage of this Bill, although I am bound to repeat that it does seem to me a some-what serious departure from precedent that we should be asked to suspend the Standing Order and take the Bill practically through all its stages to-day with the prospect of the Prorogation to-morrow. It is a Private Member's Bill. It is not even as if it were a Government Bill, nor even as if it were a Bill dealing with finance. It is a matter of acute public controversy, as we know from the speech which has just been made by the noble Viscount opposite. I do not think that in a matter of this kind it is for us sitting on these Benches to do more than make a protest and to say that we think the responsibility in this matter really must rest with the Government. If they are prepared to take the responsibility and say this is in their opinion a Bill which, in spite of the irregularity of procedure, is one which ought to be passed here and now, then I should certainly enter no further objection.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT CAVE): My Lords, I think that in view of the question which has been raised it is desirable that I should reply at once. The noble Earl has asked whether, in view of the procedure adopted in regard to this Bill—which entirely agree is quite unusual in the case of a Private Member's Bill—the Government are prepared to give their approval to what is being done think I may frankly say "Yes" to that. When this Bill was initiated it was submitted to members of the present Government and I think in their view the Bill accords with the views which have been stated in another place by
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several members of the Government. I have not met one member of the Government who did not express his approval of the proposals of the Bill. I am not going to reply to my noble friend Viscount Burnham, because he is not, as I gather, opposing the Bill.
VISCOUNT BURNHAM: No, I am not.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Of course he knows this is a Bill consisting really of two parts. The first part is that which forbids anybody to print or publish in relation to official proceedings matter the publication of which will be calculated to injure public morals. I am disposed to think that that is the law to-day, but at all events I do not think there is any one alive, or at any rate any one in this House, who would object to that. The second part is, I agree, more specific and prevents publication—to put it shortly—of the evidence in a case. But it allows publication of the nature of the case, of the charges made, of the summing up or the judgment of the Judge in the case—in which, of course, he refers to the facts—and of the verdict and decision.
What is shut out is that sort of evidence which is not published in the ordinary cases to which my noble friend refers, which is only published in notorious cases, and which I think very few people here would desire to read or to see in the Press. That is the effect of it. I think the enormous majority by which the Bill was carried in another place is evidence that public opinion supports the proposal. My noble friend made an appeal on behalf of the reporter. I do not think he can have read the provision on the second page of the Bill:—
"Provided that no person, other than a proprietor, editor, master printer or publisher, shall be liable to be convicted under this Act."
It does not save him, I agree, but it is a protection to the reporter.
VISCOUNT BURNHAM: Yes, but the reporter may be discharged for letting in his editor and proprietor. That would be a very likely thing.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: That is a wholly different matter. The noble Lord rather conveyed the impression that the

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reporter might be charged under the Bill. I think I need not go further into the measure because the general opinion is in favour of it. For myself I hope the House will pass the Bill.
LORD CARSON: My Lords, I am certainly not an opponent of this Bill, but it occurs to me that, the favourite method now of passing legislation in this House is simply to say: "The Bill is wanted, therefore let us pass it in any shape or in any form. That does not matter." That is exactly what I protest against as regards this Bill. The Bill, in my opinion, is a very good Bill—in its principle. But it is a Bill which requires examination, and I am one of those who are of opinion that the House of Lords is a proper revising Chamber. But we are fast getting away from that every day. The last couple of weeks have shown that we have allowed Bills to go upon the Statute Book involving the most enormous changes and the most enormous burdens upon the taxpayers of this country without even a moderate, decent revision of the measures that have been brought, forward.
I hope that we shall not abrogate the position that the Constitution puts upon us. Why is it that we are to be the mere handmaidens of a Conservative Government? That is what brings us into disrepute. I have had I do not know how many letters from people—some of them of great business experience—asking me to put down Amendments as regards various Bills, one particularly in which I took a good deal of interest—Bills like the Electricity (Supply) Bill and the Merchandise Marks (Imported Goods) Bill. If this were really a revising Chamber and we were really doing business here and engaged in realities, I would not mind the sacrifice of any amount of time in trying to make Bills better. But I have written back to all those who wrote to me to say that this was a mere matter of form, as things are at present constituted in this House, and that it was not worth while putting down Amendments or trying to deal with details because the House is so discouraged by the way in which business is transacted, by having Bills brought up and thrown at our heads in the last two or three days of the Session and being told that we must pass them before Christmas, that it-really is not worth anybody's while to
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give up his time, his attention and his energies to trying to make these Bills any better.
Consider what we are doing to-day. We have suspended Standing Order No. XXXIX, an Order which says that we shall not take all the various stages of a Bill on the same day. Why is that Standing Order there? I assume that it is there because the House in its wisdom thought that a Second Reading was necessary, that a Committee stage was necessary, that a Report stage was necessary and that a Third Reading was necessary. Would it not be far better to change the Standing Order and to say that after a certain date all Bills coming up from the House of Commons shall be read a third time in this House? That is what it really amounts to. There are details in this Bill, as is quite clear from the speech of the noble Viscount below me, which require at all events some examination and which ought to be sifted with calm deliberation. But all this is to come to an end and, though I am quite aware that there may be occasions on which it is necessary to suspend the Standing Orders of the House and allow legislation to be passed rapidly in the interests, for instance, of public order, I do not consider that this is such an occasion.
I notice that in my own country the other day the Free State Government in the Dail passed a Coercion Act through all its stages in one day, enabling the Government to arrest and keep in prison without trial any person they pleased. That was a matter of public order and of emergency. They passed that Act and, no doubt, if it were a question of emergency legislation in this country, this House would do the same, at all events if a Conservative Government were in power. I can understand that. But that a Bill of this kind, dealing with reports which we have had for a long time, a Bill for which the Government do not make themselves responsible, should be brought up to this House and put through all its stages in one day is really, I think, turning this House into ridicule.
I associate myself with the protest that was made by the Leader of the remnant of the Liberal Party in this House. His protest could be applied to a great many other cases and, if you only look

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round the House at the present moment and at the numbers that attend here from day to day, you will realise that it is not any Party that is trying to abolish the House of Lords but the Conservative Government by its administration of business and by the way it treats this House. We talk every day of reform and of wanting more powers for this House, but the powers that we have, even the ordinary powers of revision, are put an end to when we come to the end of the Session. I do hope that somebody in authority who is able to deal with this matter will take it seriously and will try to make some sort of arrangement of our business so that, so long as we exist, we shall exist not as a farce but as a reality, and so that we may endeavour to impress our views upon the legislation of this country.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, I do not wish to express any opinion on this Bill—I do not think that it will do much harm, except to assist divorce, and I do not think it will do much good—but I do wish to protest, as I have often protested in years gone by, against taking all the stages of a 1301 in one day. After all, this is a Private Member's Bill. When the Government bring in a Bill we are told that it has been well considered and it is supposed to be a sort of sacred thing against which you must not speak or even divide—or rather, against which you must not divide or even speak. But this is a Private Member's Bill, and a Private Member's Bill which has been objected to in the House of Commons and fought on the Third Reading. It is now to be brought here, without anybody really knowing very much about it or what effect it will have, and passed through all its stages in one day.
I remember a very well-known Liberal Member of the House of Commons saying to me one day: "All Private Member's Bills are bad, but ours are the worst." I do not know whether this was a Liberal Private Member's Bill or a Conservative Private Member's Bill, but I do know that it is a Private Member's Bill, I do know that we have existed for more than a thousand years without this Bill and I do not know that we have come to very much harm. I really cannot see why we
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should not wait and pass this Bill, if it is really necessary, next year. It is to be earnestly hoped that next year there will be nothing on earth for the Government to do except to administer the country and cut down expenditure. In those circumstances, if they think that this is such a good Bill, they can very well introduce it next Session and bring it to us when we have time to consider it.
I remember, when I first had the honour of coming into this House, hearing a very strong speech by the late Marquess Curzon of Kedleston against forcing this House to legislate hurriedly at the end of the Session, and that speech was supported by the noble Marquess the present Lord Salisbury. And yet, notwithstanding the fact that both the late Leader and the present Leader of my Party in this House had expressed themselves strongly against the habit of bringing forward a lot of Bills at the end of the Session and passing them without consideration, we are asked now to pass a Private Member's Bill which has been opposed in another place by a very prominent lawyer. The chief opponent of the Bill was Sir Ellis Hume-Williams, a prominent lawyer concerned in cases which this Bill affects. Surely his opinion is worth some consideration. I have known him for a great number of years and I never knew him oppose the Government before. If he has opposed them on this occasion I think there is no doubt that he must be right. I do not know if it is too late, but I would appeal to my noble and learned friend, for whom, as he knows, I have a very great personal respect, to allow this Bill to stand over for the present and to let us discuss it in peace and calm two months from now.
LORD PHILLIMORE: My Lords, I entirely sympathise with the expressions that have fallen from the noble Earl and, for once, I sympathise with the expressions that have fallen from the noble Lord, who is not unknown in connection with powers of obstruction, but this measure, after all, is really a measure that your Lordships have passed before. As I read it, it is very nearly in the same shape as the measure that you previously passed, after much discussion. I remember being present and listening to a speech from the noble Viscount, Lord Burnham, on this subject.
VISCOUNT BURNHAM: I have never spoken before on this subject.
LORD PHILLIMORE: I am very sorry. I thought I had heard the noble Viscount speak on this subject. I certainly have heard speeches which might very well have come from him, which is another matter. Really, nobody denies that this is a good Bill. Nobody denies that the evil is enormous. We may or may not be able to check it, but we ought to do our best, and, as an old Judge who has had large experience in these matters, I think I should be wrong if I did not urge your Lordships to pass the measure.
On Question, Bill read 2ª, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended), it was moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Darling.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Restriction on publication of reports of judicial proceedings.
(4) Nothing in this section shall apply to the publishing of any notice or report in pursuance of the directions of the Court; or to the publishing of any matter in any separate volume or part of any bonâ fide series of law reports which does not form part of any other publication and consists solely of reports of proceedings in Courts of law, or in any publication of a technical character bonâ fide intended for circulation among members of the legal or medical professions.
LORD DARLING: I desire to move, with regard to subsection (4) of this clause, an Amendment that is not precisely in the form in which it is on the Order Paper. I would not myself have introduced this Amendment, nor do I think it is very necessary or important, but a public Department has taken the view that some such Amendment as this is necessary, and yesterday I put down the; Amendment as it stands on the Paper. Since then I have been in communication with the official draftsman, and I would therefore venture to move the Amendment in a form very nearly
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the same as that which is on the Paper, but differing from it and making it, I think, more perfect. It is in subsection (4), before the first "publishing," to insert "printing of any pleading, transcript of evidence or other document for use in connection with any judicial proceedings or the communication thereof to persons concerned in the proceedings or to the printing or."
I ought to explain that these words are supposed to be necessary because it is thought—I do not think so myself—that some printer would be nervous when called upon to print the pleadings and copies of documents to be used in a trial about to come on. I do not think that there is much in that, because proceedings under this Bill can only be commenced on the fiat of the Attorney-General. Still, as it is thought that a printer might take this view, and that it might be that a man would really be committing a crime but would not be prosecuted for it—for that reason, while apologising to the House, I venture to move the words in the form in which I have just read them.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 21, after ("the") insert ("printing of any aleading, transcript of evidence or other document for use in connection with any judicial proceedings or the communication thereof to persons concerned in the proceedings or to the printing or").—(Lord Darling.)
VISCOUNT BURNHAM: This is not a printed Amendment, and it is a little difficult to follow. I should like to ask whether under this Amendment a new liberty or licence is to be extended to the Press, because pleadings are not privileged if printed in the newspapers now.
LORD DARLING: I am sorry the noble Viscount has not had an opportunity of reading this Amendment, but I think if he had read the Amendment as it stands on the Paper, which he might have done if lie had cared, he would have seen that this confers no new liberty or licence upon the Press. It is intended, as I explained, to relate to the proceedings while they are still going on—to the pleadings printed for the use of the Judge and parties in the case—and not at all to extend the liberty of the Press to the printing of pleadings, which may be perfectly obscene and

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undesirable for publication in the newspapers.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I would like to ask your Lordships whether it is possible to conceive an instance which would better illustrate the inconvenience of the proceedings in which we are now engaged. There are a number of members of this House who are fully capable of understanding the wording of an Amendment, and capable of appreciating fine distinctions which are not always, perhaps, quite clear to the lay mind, but I would desire to ask in this House, with many learned and distinguished lawyers present, how many there are who could rise at this moment and say that they understand what it is that the noble and learned Lord is now proposing. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that no one really quite appreciates what is being put forward. I am not complaining, of course, of the noble and learned Lord, who has devised something better than the Department of the Government which proposed it.
LORD DARLING: I beg the pardon of the noble Marquess. What I have moved is exactly what the Department drew up, and I put it forward as being better than that which I, with the assistance of Lord Merrivale, drew up yesterday.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I beg the noble Lord's pardon. As we go deeper, so the truth becomes more apparent. Here is an Amendment put down to be passed, and yet those whose business it is to consider the matter immediately put forward reasons why it is necessary to move it in a different form. I say quite frankly that I do not at present understand what it is that the noble and learned Lord is proposing as an Amendment. I do appreciate the words as they appear on the Paper, because I have had an opportunity of reading them, but I do not understand the full effect of the Amendment as it is now moved. I am strongly in favour of the Bill, and I do not wish to take any step which would interfere with the passing of it, although I join cordially and fully in the protest which has been made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carson, especially when we bear in mind that this Bill is a Private Member's Bill and not a Government Bill. It is clearly not a matter which the Government can say is so pressing that it must be passed this
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Session, otherwise they would themselves have introduced it.
I enter a protest against the course that has been taken, and as I listened to the discussion in this House I have been wondering whether exactly the same procedure would have been adopted if this Bill had come up while another Government had been in power, and that other Government had asked that there should be a suspension of the Standing Order, so that a Private Member's Bill should pass on almost the last day of the Session. I venture, with great respect, and with a due sense of the justice and fairness which characterise your Lordships' House, to doubt whether in that case the result would have been the same.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: As I understand it, a Government Department put down the Amendment which appears on the Paper. They only put it down, as I understand, yesterday. Having seen their own Amendment in print they came to the conclusion that it was a bad one and wanted altering.
LORD DARLING: Not a bad one.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: Well, that it wanted altering. How do we know that they will not to-morrow think it wants altering again, and, if that is so, how are we to do it? I am perfectly certain of one thing that the very worst thing that anybody can do is to pass hasty legislation.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, I only desire to speak on my own behalf, and not for those with whom I act. I must say I entirely agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carson. I think it is a monstrous thing that a Bill of this kind introduced by a Private Member should be passed through all stages at quite the end of the Session. I am one of those who do not like this Bill; I am not ashamed to say so. I have examined the question very frequently, because I believe that there is a greater safeguard in publicity than in the attempt to obscure publicity under a Bill of this kind. I know that that has not been the view generally expressed.
I was very much struck by the complication of the Amendment moved by the noble Lord. My opinion in that respect has been confirmed entirely by what has

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been said by the noble Marquess. If the noble Marquess, with all his experience in matters of this kind, is still in doubt as to the meaning of the Amendment, what must be the state of mind of an ordinary member of the House? I suppose I have some knowledge of legal matters, but I confess I am quite at sea as to what is really proposed in this Amendment. We have, of course, the Amendment on the Paper, put on the Paper at the last moment, but there is really no chance of reasonable discussion if that Amendment is itself to be amended. Such a procedure means that, as regards any control over a Bill of this kind, your Lordships are giving up your function entirely.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I do not want to deprive noble Lords of their grumble, which they have enjoyed to the full extent, but I want to make two observations. Lord Banbury seems to think that the Amendment on the Paper is a Government Amendment, improved to-day. That is not so. The Amendment on the Paper is that of my noble friend, which he drafted without consultation, or, at all events without putting the terms to the Home Office; the Amendment which he moves to-day is an improvement, I think, on that Amendment, approved by the Home Office. That is the difference between the two. The second observation is this. The noble Marquess opposite, who understands almost everything, tells us that he does not understand this Amendment as moved. The effect of it is this—and he will understand it at once—to make clear that it shall not be an offence under the Act to print pleadings and transcripts of evidence for use in any action, or to communicate those papers to persons concerned in the action. I am sure it is now clear to the noble Marquess and to other noble Lords.
EARL BUXTON: When noble and learned Lords are unable to agree as to what this Amendment means, what inference is an unfortunate layman like myself to draw with regard to its meaning? And what is our position generally as a House? Here is a Bill which has been before the country for some months, in fact it was passed last year in another place, and then considered by this House, and this year, having already been before another
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place, it now comes before us at the end of the Session. Let me say at once that I am entirely in favour of the Bill: it is with the question of procedure that I am concerned. We are asked to pass the Bill through all its stages this afternoon. We have agreed to the Second Reading without a Division, and at the very last moment the noble Lord who is responsible for the Bill—for the Government disclaim all responsibility—introduces an Amendment which is so obscure that he does not move his own draft, but proposes it in another form which we have not seen, and asks us to pass it without further consideration.
Although the Government disclaim responsibility for this Amendment, I understood from Lord Darling that this Amendment is practically a Government Amendment, because it comes from the Home Office, so that the Home Office and the Government are responsible for it. I do not think this is treating the House at all fairly, and I agree with every word said by Lord Carson in his admirable speech. I think he showed conclusively that this is just the sort of procedure which reduces the influence and the advantage for good of your Lordships' House. I would ask your Lordships, therefore, whether in these circumstances it is not our duty, without in any sense going back on the Second Reading of the Bill and preventing the passing of the Bill, to vote against this Amendment, because we have no idea of what its effect may be on the Bill and also because a protest should be made against the method in which it has been proposed.
On Question. Amendment agreed to.
LORD DARLING LORD DARLING moved, in subsection (4), before the second "publishing", to insert "printing or". The noble Lord said: The object of this Amendment is that the section shall cover the printing as well as the publishing of the matter referred to therein. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 23, after the second ("the") insert ("printing or").—(Lord Darling.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
LORD DARLING: My Lords, I beg to move that the Report of Amendments be now received.
Moved, That the Report of Amendments be now received.—(Lord Darling.)
LORD CARSON: My Lords, I am not very well acquainted with the, rules, but would it be in order to move to leave out the words used by the noble Lord and to insert "that the Bill be now read a third time"? It would shorten the farce, which would be a great thing.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It would not be in order to do that.
On Question, Motion agreed to: Amendments reported accordingly.
Bill read 3ª, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

PALESTINE AND EAST AFRICA LOANS (GUARANTEE) BILL.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the Bill had been endorsed with a certificate from the Speaker that it is a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act, 1911.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF CLARENDON): My Lords, your Lordships are probably aware that this Bill has been certified as a Money Bill and, like my noble friend Lord Burnham, it is no part of my intention to stand between your Lordships and the interesting Motion which my noble friend Lord Weir has on the Paper. I will be as brief, therefore, as I possibly can in explaining this Bill. The principle involved in the Bill is that of an Imperial guarantee for a series of loans which are to be raised by six or seven different Governments. In the Bill the guarantee is in regard to £4,500,000 for Palestine and £10,000,000 for the contiguous countries in East Africa. As your Lordships are probably aware it is only Kenya that is entitled to raise a loan under the Colonial Stock Act inasmuch as it is the only one of the territories mentioned which is a Colony. The territories of Palestine and Tanganyika are mandated territories, while the territories of Uganda, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Zanzibar are Protectorates.
Turning to the First Schedule of the Bill, that schedule deals with the loan of £4,500,000 in so far as Palestine is concerned. The purpose of this loan is
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three-fold. It is, first of all, for the repayment of £1,000,000 sterling to His Majesty's Government for railways constructed in that territory, which were constructed and paid for by the British taxpayer. Secondly, it is for a sum of between a million and a million and a half to repay the Crown Agents for money advanced by them from the surplus balances of other Colonies for capital expenditure incurred in connection with roads, railways, telegraphs and public buildings; and, thirdly, it is to provide new money for harbour construction. The principal commercial harbour will be situated at Haifa and improvements are to be carried out at Jaffa itself. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Arnold, is going to ask a question as regards harbour construction at Haifa and Jaffa and it might shorten the debate a little if I gave him some information at this stage. With regard to the harbour at Haifa the scheme has not yet been approved and is still under consideration. The only works that are proceeding at the present moment are certain improvements which are being carried out at Jaffa in order to relieve the congestion which prevails there at the present time.
Turning to Schedule 2 of the Bill, which deals with East Africa and its contiguous territories, this schedule has a history. As your Lordships will probably remember, a Commission was set up under the Labour Government and was sent out under the Chairmanship of my hon. friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, Mr. Ormsby-Gore, assisted by a Liberal and a Labour colleague, to examine the possibilities in East Africa. That Commission reported that the development of the six continuous countries depended on a continuous programme of providing better transport facilities, and it recommended that in future it would be advisable to work to a programme over a series of years and not, as hitherto, to carry out the work by fits and starts as and when the money was available. After careful consideration of these proposals His Majesty's Government felt that before they were accepted it was essential that they should be in possession of the views not only of the local Governments themselves but also of financial and railway experts.

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Accordingly, the local Governments having proposed that a sum of £16,000,000 should be spent in so far as these works were concerned, their suggestions were submitted to the Schuster Committee, which has published two interim Reports, the principal one in July of this year. This Committee, in considering these proposals, felt that further service and economic reports should be forthcoming and, in order that the necessary material may be acquired for investigation, men have been sent out and are at present carrying out that work. When Sir George Schuster, who is at the present moment in the Soudan, where he is principal financial adviser, and General Hammond, the railway expert, who is at the present moment in Iraq, return, the Committee will once more meet and will recommend Which projects shall be proceeded with and when.
That, I think, explains the Bill, but before I formally move the Second Reading may I make quite briefly one or two remarks. I do not suppose, so far as we on this side of the House are concerned that there is any difference of opinion on the question of utilising our credit for developing the resources of the British Empire and I do not know that on the financial side it would not be true to say noble Lords opposite are with us in this respect, inasmuch as Mr. Thomas, when he was Colonial Secretary, appointed the Commission to which I have referred, that went out to East Africa under the Chairmanship of Mr. Ormsby-Gore. I do not suppose those will be any dispute upon this point, that it is our duty to help mandated territories just as we do our Colonial Dependencies. We cannot place them, surely, in a worse position because they do not happen to be in the strictest sense of the word part of the British Empire.
In regard to the question of money I would desire to remind your Lordships of the statement that was made in another place—I think it was during the debate on the Financial Resolution—by my right hon. friend Mr. McNeill, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who gave the House of Commons an assurance that the money would only he used as and when needed. My right hon. friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies, speaking in another place,
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assured the House that in his opinion we were not backing in any sense of the word a losing venture, or one which would involve the British taxpayers in loss, since the loans which were guaranteed by the British Government were amply covered by the Revenues of the countries to which the money would be lent. I need hardly remind your Lordships that no guarantee will be given until a most careful and thorough scrutiny has been made of these proposals and after the Government itself has received the expert advice, not only of financial and economic but of railway experts, on the wisdom of these schemes.
There is one further point that I should like to make. We are doing something further than is suggested in this Bill. We are creating a substantial volume of orders for this country. About one half of the money which is required by these territories will be expended upon railway construction and quite a large proportion of the material will be supplied by manufacturers here. I do not know that I need make any further observations at this stage, but will content myself with moving that Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Earl of Clarendon.)
LORD ARNOLD: My Lords, the noble Earl has outlined the main provisions of this measure with his customary clearness and conciseness and, if I may, I should like to take, this opportunity on my own behalf—and I think many noble Lords will agree with this—of expressing regret that I am afraid this is perhaps the last time we may hear him as spokesman in your Lordships' House for the Dominions and Colonial Office. This measure does raise very large questions of financial and of Imperial policy. It is true, as the noble Earl has said, that this is a Money Bill, but that is no reason why it should not be discussed. As a matter of fact it may interest your Lordships if I point out that this is not a Bill which comes under the operation of the Parliament Act, because it has not been sent up to your Lordships' House earlier than one month before the end of the Session and, indeed, strictly speaking—I am not suggesting this should be done—it would be competent for your Lordships, if you are so

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disposed, to insert an Amendment in this Bill. It would be a privilege Amendment, but, if it was agreed to in another place, it would then become law.
I mention that because the noble Earl will perhaps recall that in another place the Secretary of State for the Colonies, who was desirous of inserting an Amendment, stated that it could not be done in your Lordships' House and, therefore, he went through a somewhat unusual procedure in order to obtain the Report stage in another place. As a matter of fact, strictly speaking, it could have been done in your Lordships' House if, when it was sent down to another place, it was agreed to there. I am not saying that that ought to be done, I am not at all commenting upon the position of affairs in regard to these matters, but am merely stating what the position is.
We have in the Labour Party given general support to this Bill—not unqualified support. I shall have certain criticisms to offer. The first thing I would say in a general way about it is that it is only another instance, if one were needed, of the inconsistency of His Majesty's Government. The position is this. His Majesty's Government intimated some months ago that they would not continue the Trade Facilities Acts and that the system of giving guarantees must come to an end. They used language, I think your Lordships will find, about the deleterious effect which these repeated guarantees had upon the national credit. But it is not because of that that this Government, as I will point out, has considerably depreciated the national credit. They said the Trade Facilities Act must come to an end, yet, within a very few months of that, we find the same Government coming to your Lordships' House and asking for a guarantee of £14,500,000—not a small sum—and also setting up an Advisory Committee which, as I understand, will function almost precisely as the Advisory Committees have functioned under the Trade Facilities Act. Therefore it is an inconsistent thing to do so far as that is concerned, but inconsistency is one of the minor vices of this Government. So far as we in the Labour Party are concerned we are not inconsistent, because we wish the Trade Facilities Act to be continued and, broadly speaking, we are in favour of this guarantee.
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I will deal first with Palestine, but upon that I have not very much to say by way of criticism. From the start the Zionist movement has received the warm approval and support of the Labour Party and we are rejoiced at the great progress which the new Palestine has made and at the way in which its financial position has improved. I think that general satisfaction will be felt on this account. In particular, if I may say so, it must be very gratifying to the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, whose great part in the inception and development of the new Palestine is, of course, a matter of history. As to the loan of £4,500,000 I certainly agree that the security seems to be sufficient. The financial position of Palestine has improved rapidly in the last two or three years. About three years ago the Budget scarcely balanced, but last year the total Revenue, I believe, was about £2,750,000 and there is a surplus of no less than £700,000. Therefore, the security seems to be sufficient even if it were a guarantee of £4,500,000. But, although that is true in one sense, in another sense it is not true, because £3,000,000 to £3,500,000 of this is coming back to this country at once. That is a very satisfactory state of things and it occurs to me that it would be a rather happy circumstance if we could adopt the same procedure with regard to certain other countries which owe us money. It is noteworthy that Palestine is possibly the first country, the first post-War country, to repay, or which will repay according to this Bill, all that has been advanced.
About £1,115,000 will be available for harbour works in Palestine and for other works. I am not quite clear what the other works will be, but they will be public works of one kind or another. As regards the harbour of Haifa, which understand will absorb most of the money, I would very much like to ask whether before that enterprise is undertaken at Haifa the Government is going to get expert advice upon the matter. I am not in any way objecting to the harbour at Haifa—that is not the point—but I have not forgotten the Takoradi harbour. The present Secretary of State knows a great deal about that matter. The fact is that the bad situation there was transformed owing to the prompt action of my right hon. friend Mr. J. H.

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Thomas in sending out that eminent authority, Mr. Palmer, to report and advise.
As the result of that action Takoradi will in the end, I believe, prove to be a big success. But it is only right to say-that owing to the early mistakes there was lost on this harbour work at Takoradi some hundreds of thousands of pounds, amounting, I believe, in all to a sum not far short of £1,000,000. I think your Lordships will agree, in view of that experience, that I do not do wrong in suggesting that the harbour work at Haifa, if and when it conies to be undertaken, should be most carefully considered. It would be a considerable advantage if there were some experts' report before the contracts are let. I suppose it is too early to inquire what system of contract there will be—whether the work will be put up to tender or not—but I would like to say a word on the question of wages in connection with the harbour works and other works in Palestine.
It was suggested in another place that a fair wages clause should be inserted in the Bill, but the Secretary of State said that could not be done. He did, however, make a pledge that as regards the new harbour works at Haifa wages would be very carefully considered. The point is made that they must not be so low that only Arabs could be expected to take them. Jews must also be able to take them, and they must be of such a level that white people could live on them. The Secretary of State gave a pledge about that matter which gave much satisfaction to the Labour Party.
Now I come to East Africa, and here I have rather more criticism to offer. A great deal of the case for the loan to East Africa is based, as the noble Earl said, on the Report of Mr. Ormsby-Gore's Committee. But much in that Repot conflicts with the Report known as the Schuster Report. The fact is that we want more information about these matters—I think the Government will admit that—and that makes it all the more a pity that the Southborough Committee, which was set up by my right hon. friend Mr. J. H. Thomas, was disbanded by the present Government. The noble Earl has referred to the Ormsby-Gore Committee, but not to the Southborough Committee, which as a matter of fact
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was set up before the Ormsby-Gore Committee, which was a large Committee, which was an influential Committee, and which was presided over by Lord Southborough. The Ormsby-Gore Committee was really only a sort of Sub-Committee of the Southborough Committee.
Yet, owing to the change of Government, we are faced by the extraordinary position that the Southborough Committee was disbanded without any good reason at all after the present Secretary of State assumed office. Not only so, but the Islington Committee, set up by the Labour Government, was similarly disbanded. I say emphatically that I think this is a very bad precedent to set. Quite apart, as has been said, from the discourtesy to my right hon. friend, the information collected by these Committees would have been of great value. Moreover, we cannot expect gentlemen to give time to sit on Committees if there is a prospect on a change of Government that they will find all their work immediately brought to naught and the Committee disbanded. It is made all the worse because really no adequate explanation or excuse has been offered by the Secretary of State for what he did.
However, as regards the East African Loan of £10,000,000, we in the Labour Party give it general support. The financial security is not so good as in the case of Palestine, but it is probably good enough. £10,000,000 is a very large sum and it is noteworthy that only about:£1,500,000, according to the Schuster Report, will be used in the near future. Therefore a very much larger sum is being asked for than is needed for some time to come. It will, in fact, in all probability be many years before the whole of this £10,000,000 will be needed. The noble Earl does not dissent from that.
There is one important point in this connection which is not satisfactory at all. I have more than once referred in your Lordships' House to the damage that this Government has done to trade in various ways and, as I have said, the Government has unfortunately also seriously depreciated the national credit. Therefore it is very much dearer to borrow money now than when the Labour Government went out of office. The noble Viscount may laugh, but I am stating a

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fact. The Conversion Loan, which stood at 80 when the Labour Government went cut of office, stands to-day at about 75. Consols, which stood then at 58½stand to-day just below 54. What does this mean in terms of credit? It means that for every £100 borrowed these Colonies will have to pay in the region of 7s. 6d. a year more in interest than when the Labour Government was in office. I say frankly that I look for very little improvement so long as the present administration remains in office. In fact, things may very likely get worse.
Happily, there is a prospect of a Labour Government before very long and then no doubt the national credit will be restored to what it stood at before, but that will take time. Despite the careful and prudent policy in finance and other ways which the Labour Party will follow it will take time to undo the mischief wrought by the present Administration. Probably by the time the last million pounds of this loan is needed the Labour Government will have done its good work and borrowing may be decidedly cheaper for the Colonies concerned. So far as that goes the delay is not one of which we need complain. Indeed, I am not complaining myself of delay, except that it seems somewhat extraordinary to ask for £10,000,000 so long before you need it. If I may say so, and I speak with some little knowledge, it would appear that the amount of work which can be wisely undertaken at a particular time is not very great. The Schuster Report bears that out. Therefore, the position is that a very large advance is being made over and above what is actually needed.
In the debates in another place it was suggested that Kenya should be taken out of the operation of this Bill, and the main reason for that lay in the question of labour conditions. I should like, before I sit down, to say a word on that point. This is a matter of the greatest importance, and it arises in connection with this Bill and with our whole Colonial policy. The Labour Party is watching very closely and very anxiously the course of affairs in this regard. The subject is, of course, a very big one, and unfortunately, with the great pressure of work thrown upon your Lordships' House at the end of the Session, to which reference has
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already been made several times to-day, it is not possible to make more than a passing reference to this matter to-day. There are, however, two or three things that I wish to say.
First let me observe that the position and policy of the Labour Party with reference to the natives in our Colonies has been laid down in a recently published book by my right hon. friend Mr. J.H. Thomas, who, I need scarcely remind your Lordships, was Secretary of State for the Colonies in the Labour Government. In this book there are laid down three very clear principles regarding our obligations towards and trusteeship for the natives, and the second of these principles reads as follows:—
"The native must, as a worker, be a free man, and hence there must be no slavery, no forced labour and no pressure upon him to work for the settlers."
Certainly so far as Kenya is concerned, and perhaps in other parts also, there seems to have been much going on which is not in accord with the words that I have just quoted. As recently as October of this year a statement was made by the Colonial Secretary in the Kenya Government which seems to us in the Labour Party to be very unsatisfactory from the point of view of the natives. As I say, it is not possible on this occasion to go into these matters with further quotations or in greater detail, but I wish to make it clear that, so far as we in the Labour Party are concerned, we strongly object to anything in the shape of forced labour being used in connection with the works that will be carried out under this Bill or in connection with any works of this description. Fortunately, so far as this Bill is concerned, the Secretary of State for the Colonies has accepted an Amendment which covers the point, and we are obliged to him for that.
I now pass to my last point, which concerns the schedule. The noble Earl himself drew attention to the way in which this sum of £10,000,000 will in due course be allocated. I have already said, and the noble Earl agrees, that it will probably be some years before the full amount is needed. In those circumstances I would submit that it does seem unnecessary here and now specifically to allocate this money in definite proportions in the schedule of the Bill

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and to describe the way in which it shall be spent. I am quite satisfied, for instance, that it would be a very good thing if more money were available than can be available under this schedule for scientific research and so forth. Various ameliorative measures could be undertaken, and I should very much desire that the item which includes this subject in the schedule were of a bigger amount. I cannot quite understand—perhaps the noble Earl will be good enough in his reply to tell me—why it is necessary to do this now. The Secretary of State has said that he must immediately ask for £10,000,000, for reasons that he gave and that did not seem to me very convincing, although I admit that this is a matter for argument. However that may be, why is it necessary now, when there is so much uncertainty, specifically to allocate these sums into what might be called watertight compartments? That is all that I have to say. I think that my noble friend Lord Olivier, who is, of course, a great authority on many of these questions, desires to say something, and accordingly I will not speak any longer, but perhaps the noble Earl, with his usual courtesy, will be good enough, when he replies, to answer the questions that I have asked.
EARL BUXTON: My Lords, I do not propose to detain your Lordsips more than a very few minutes, because, in the first place, I have nothing but praise to give to this proposal of the Government and, in the second place, we are in the unfortunate position of having to pass an enormous amount of legislation at the present sitting. I listened with interest to the speech of my noble friend Lord Arnold, but I confess that I did not quite understand why, every few minutes, he dragged in the Labour Party. I am glad to think and believe, and, from all that he said, I think I am justified in declaring, that in regard to our Colonial policy generally there is no difference of opinion between the different Parties in the State. Broadly speaking, they are all supporting the proposals made by my noble friend in this Bill, and they agree also in regard to the native question, and I think, therefore, that it was rather a pity, if I may say so, seeing that the late Labour Secretary of State for the Colonies has
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done as much as any man to bring about a general agreement in regard to this question of native labour and other matters, that this sort of distinction should be drawn in relation to such a Bill as this.
The proposals of this Bill—perhaps I ought to say that I am speaking now not with regard to Palestine, of which I am afraid I have no special knowledge, but in regard to East Africa—will, I am confident, be of the greatest possible advantage from the point of view of the Empire and of the East African Colonies. There is no question about it that this money is required for the development both of railways and harbours, and it will undoubtedly be of enormous advantage to those parts of the Empire, as well as to ourselves at home. It is well worth our while, looking at it from a purely business point of view, to do that which this Bill proposes—namely, to lend them our credit so that they may develop their country. I quite agree with my noble friend Lord Arnold that one has to be careful under present conditions of utilising the credit of this country in such a way as is likely to diminish that credit, but I do not think that this objection applies to this particular proposal or to the method by which the credit is to be used in this case. I agree that £10,000,000 is a large sum, but unfortunately it is a mere fleabite in the present conditions of our Debt. This money will be used in such a way as to bring advantage both to this country and to East Africa, and accordingly I am in entire agreement with the general principles of the Bill.
There is another point upon which I agree with my noble friend who spoke just now. I think we ought to recognise that we really owe these proposals for the development of railways and harbours to Mr. Ormsby-Gore, the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. They were entirely due to his efforts and those of his colleagues, one associated with the Labour Party and the other with the Liberal Party, to his enterprise, to his extraordinarily rapid appreciation of the various problems that had to be considered, to the courage with which he made his proposals and to the lucidity with which he explained them in his Report—a Report which (like his other Report an West Africa) may be regarded as epoch-making in the view of the fact

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that it convinced the Government of the day and the succeeding Government of the necessity of doing something on a large scale for East Africa. I think that he is to be warmly congratulated on the success that has attended his efforts and those of his colleagues. I also agree that we owe a great deal to Sir George Schuster for his Report, which is quite invaluable from the point of view of finding the best way in which this money can be allocated.
On the other hand, I am inclined to agree with my noble friend Lord Arnold that the matter should not be pushed forward too rapidly. We do, I think, at all events in some cases, require a little more information before we allocate so definitely and clearly, by means of a schedule, the various sums to the various proposals. We want, I think, a little more elasticity about it, because I believe that we are all quite prepared to give authority to the Colonial Office to deal with this matter. I am very glad to hear it said that there is to be a further meeting of the Schuster Committee in the light of what has occurred since the last meeting, with a view to giving further advice to His Majesty's Government. That, I think, is all to the good. Lastly, I agree very warmly with the proposals made in this Bill, and certainly I and those with whom I act will give it our support. There is one other matter to which I may refer in conclusion. I greatly regret that Lord Clarendon is leaving the Colonial Office to take up what is undoubtedly a very important position, and all of us who have had to deal with him, officially and personally, deeply regret that he is leaving the Colonial Office and in that sense leaving official life.
LORD OLIVIER: My Lords, the noble Earl took exception to Lord Arnold' reference to Mr. Thomas as if he were an authority in this House, or as if we were in any way more advanced in policy on African affairs than other Parties in this House. I quite agree that it is hardly to be expected that Mr. Thomas should be quoted as having any authority on your Lordships' Benches. I would therefore, very gladly, in connection with what my noble friend said, quote the words of Mr. Ormsby-Gore, in whose policy I have always concurred, and in whose policy I feel the greatest
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confidence. He well deserves the eulogy which has been passed upon him. With regard to labour in Kenya—and that applies to forced labour of whatever kind—Mr. Ormsby-Gore told us in the House of Commons, a few months ago, that in Kenya they were seeing the working out of the policy of giving an absolutely free choice to the native, as to whether he stays in the reserves or comes out and lives and associates with Europeans in agricultural work. That is a very important pronouncement, and one which is entirely satisfactory to us on these Benches, but we are continually disquieted both by the action of the Governor and of Government officials in Kenya, and by the sentiments which are continually being expressed by influential persons in Kenya, edging or trying to get away from this policy.
The Acting Governor, two or three years ago, gave us reasons for apprehension, and quite recently the Colonial Secretary said in the Legislative Council of Kenya that the Government "does believe that an attitude of positive energy on the part of administrative officials is of the greatest assistance in aiding the flow of labour from the reserves" and also believes that "the attitude of hostility or neutrality on the part of administrative officers hindered the flow of labour"—the neutrality promised by the Secretary of State far the Colonies. Therefore, he said, administrative officers had been "definitely instructed to do their utmost to promote the flow of labour from the reserves, a matter which was of immense importance to the industries of the country." That is entirely in accordance with the action taken by the Governor, and after the dual policy was announced there was an immediate suspension of labour coming out of the reserves. Thereupon the Governor went on tour round the Colony and expressed to the chiefs great dissatisfaction.
That is not a neutral policy, because if the Government, or the Governor himself, goes round and tells the native chiefs that he wants this or that thing, the native at once thinks he had better do it, and it is not leaving him a free choice in the matter. That is why we are distrustful of the Colonial Government breaking away from the policy of the Duke of Devonshire and others,

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with whose pronouncement we have been absolutely contented, and whose policy we absolutely support. Quite recently, when the Governor was addressing a conference of associations in Kenya, he made certain observations with regard to the labour position in the Colony, and said very straightforwardly that forced labour could not be used, and then judicially gave advice to the planters to concentrate altogether upon crops which did not require much labour and which they could attend to themselves. His advice coincided with the advice given by the Surveyor of Land in Rhodesia Colony the other day—namely, that if white men were wise they would try to do their own work themselves. The immediate result of that pronouncement by the Governor was, as we are told, according to The Times report, that the conference of associations passed a resolution urging that a greater measure of self-government should be given to the Colony, because it wanted to have more control. Self-government in Kenya would be control by 2,000 white men over an enormous number of coloured men, and the Government are, I am sure, convinced that it is not safe at present to give that small minority of employers the control which they desire. I have simply endeavoured to indicate our reason for the fears and apprehensions which we entertain.
Finally, I want to refer to one or two matters in the very important Report of the Conference of Governors of the East African Dependencies. With regard to the systems of native taxation, they were of opinion—
"that there was no objection to a tax on native cattle where the stock was sufficiently numerous; and that such a tax was desirable where natives had surplus cattle, and a suitable market existed, in order to promote the economic use of stock and the development of animal husbandry."
in order to induce the natives to sell their cattle to an Oxo factory, or something of that sort, being set up in the Colony. It is perfectly unjustifiable to impose a tax on native cattle for such a purpose. With regard to finance, I am very glad to see one thing which they say—namely—
"It was considered that the Poll Tax should eventually be replaced by some more scientific form of taxation."
I hope that that will be borne in mind.
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It struck me, however, that it was an unfortunate observation by Sir Edward Grigg, when he said:
"It is the settled determination of the leading Powers that the rapid transformation of tribal life and custom which is thus imposed, and cannot be set back, shall raise the standards of the backward peoples in the same measure as it benefits their conquerors."
That is a most unfortunate expression. It is true that the Scottish nation may call themselves our conquerors, because we have accepted their King and they have taken over our Colonies, but these tribes were not conquered. The supremacy of the King in East Africa was proclaimed after a Treaty had been entered into by agreement with all the natives, and there was no conquest. If there had been it would have placed the natives in an entirely different position. A native conquered and beaten in battle accepts the position, and has no rights. It was agreed by the Privy Council that we had conquered the Matabele, and that therefore the Crown had full rights in Matabeleland, but these natives in East Africa have not been conquered.
The native African has a very judicial mind and the fact that we did enter into agreements with these people causes them to be very much injured in their minds if we do any such thing. Although they do not express their dissatisfaction, yet it is a very evil influence upon our rule and upon our authority in these countries that we should appear to break contracts, and to say: "We did not enter into an agreement with you; we conquered you, and we are going to do what we like with you" The only people we conquered in East Africa are the Masai, and we conquered them because we made a Treaty with them, and broke it, and thereupon they disobeyed the Governor, who sent a punitive expedition against them. I think this, perhaps, may have been an injudicious expression of the Governor, but it is very undesirable that we should take up the position, or allow the natives to think that we take up the position, that we conquered them and can do what we like with them; because, as a matter of fact, we made agreements with them, and are bound to implement the pledge made in those agreements.
VISCOUNT ULLSWATER: My Lords, before the noble Earl replies there are two brief points I should like to raise. The first is this. I understood the noble Earl to say that there was a duty upon the Home Government to guarantee loans to territories which were mandated to us in exactly the same way as that duty falls on us in the case of our own Dominions or Colonies. I, for one, am not prepared to accept that without a good deal more consideration. It may be that eventually opinion in this country would adopt that view, but I do not think that that view is yet adopted, and I would not like his observation to pass without some sort of caveat having been entered with regard to it.
The other matter is this. I noticed that the order of subjects to which the money, when raised for the benefit of Palestine, is to be allocated is—railways, railway, harbour. It was my good fortune to be in Palestine two years ago. What we mostly suffered from there was the want of water. The noble Earl the Lord President of the Council will remember very well, for my visit synchronised with his, the great absence of water from which we both personally suffered, and from which the country as a whole suffered. We were there in the beginning of April, when there had been a tremendously long drought, and it had become necessary for the Government to spend a large sum of money in bringing a train up from Ludd every day laden with water. I observed, I think it was in the paper yesterday or a day or two previously, that at last, much to the relief of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the long drought which had continued for some months had come to an end, and that three inches of water fell in one day. I do not know which would be the more unpleasant. But, anyhow, it is perfectly obvious to the casual visitor who goes to Palestine that the one thing which is required to increase the value and productiveness of the country is that a good system of irrigation should be established, and I regret to observe that in the schedule no mention is made of what in my humble judgment, is the most important and almost the first duty falling upon a Government which has the means of carrying out that duty.
THE EARL OF CLARENDON: My Lords, first of all, may I thank both Lord Arnold and the noble Earl, Lord Buxton, for the very kindly references which they made to myself. It is quite true that probably this is the last time that I shall address your Lordships from this position, but I cannot promise never to speak in your Lordships' House again, and it occurs to me that, in taking up this new duty, the Chairmanship of the British Broadcasting Corporation, I shall perhaps, in at any rate some small way, be able to give some measure of assistance in those, matters with which I have been connected, both in the Dominions Office and in the Oversea Settlement Department.
The noble Lord, Lord Arnold, during the course of his remarks accused the present Administration of some inconsistency. I will not follow him in that argument, although I am afraid I do not agree with him altogether. He asked me in connection with the Haifa harbour, whether His Majesty's Government will obtain further information before the expenditure of this sum of £1,000,000 is entered upon, in so far as the construction of the harbour is concerned. The matter is still under consideration. At the present moment information is being procured, and nothing will be done until that information has been most carefully sifted and examined, that is to say, no money will be spent until expert advice and opinion has been obtained.
LORD ARNOLD: It is expert advice?
THE EARL OF CLARENDON: It is expert advice. The noble Lord asked me a question with regard to wages. I am extremely glad to learn from him that those whom he represents are satisfied with the pledge that my noble friend gave in another place, and I would only say, in respect of that, that in regard to these contracts the Secretary of State will, in consultation with the Governments concerned, most carefully consider the manner of the letting of these contracts in order that the interests of all those employed may be amply safeguarded.
Lord Arnold also said that it was more expensive in these days to raise money than it was under a Labour administration. I frankly confess I have not followed the movements of the money market with the same amount of care

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which Lord Arnold has, but I venture to submit that, if the schemes proposed in this Bill go through, there seems to be every likelihood of an improvement of British credit. Lord Arnold, as your Lordships are well aware, constantly takes a prominent part in this House, especially on matters connected with finance, and it occurs to me that when the next Labour Government comes into power it is quite possible that we in this House may have an opportunity of congratulating him upon his appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The noble Lord made some reference to labour conditions in Africa. I venture to say that with the views that he put forward we on this side of the House are by no means in disagreement. We feel with him that the native should exist as a free man. I will not say anything more on that point at this moment, because, in answering Lord Olivier's question, I will deal with the matter of labour.
The noble Lord also asked me a question with regard to the allocation in the East African Schedule of this sum of £10,000,000. I want to assure him that in so far as that £10,000,000 is concerned although £2,500,000 is specified for railways, £2,500,000 for harbours and £1,000,000 for roads, those allocations are purely provisional and it is not intended in any way as a final allocation. If the noble Lord will look at paragraph (a) of subsection (2) of Clause 1 of the Bill he will find that there is given therein to the Treasury and the Secretary of State powers of what is known as virement in so far as these heads of expenditure are concerned. I think those are all the questions that my noble friend Lord Arnold addressed to me.
There are only one or two points which my noble friend Lord Buxton raised on which I should like to say a few words. May I say that we on this side of the House are very glad to learn that he and those he represents are in accord with the principles laid down in this Bill? And in connection with the Report which stands under the name of my hon. friend Mr. Ormsby-Gore, the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, should like from this side of the House to join with the noble Earl in expressing the gratification of His Majesty's Government at the very valuable Report he issued on this particular subject.
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Now may I turn to the questions which were addressed to me by my noble friend Lord Olivier? The first question he asked me was in connection with labour in these territories. Let me take first the question of private estates. My hon. friend Mr. Ormsby-Gore made it quite clear in another place that in so far as forced labour upon private estates was concerned, His Majesty's Government would in no circumstances tolerate the use of forced labour upon private estates in any territories over which they had jurisdiction. With regard to public works, it is true that forced labour has been used, but here again both the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State made it clear in another place that this kind of labour would be dispensed with at the earliest possible moment.
LORD OLIVIER: Is there any reason to suppose that it will be used for any of these works under the loan?
THE EARL OF CLARENDON: That I cannot tell the noble Lord at the moment; but I will tell him this—
LORD ARNOLD: Is it not the case that the assurance given by the Secretary of State in another place and the Amendment which he accepted covered that point so far as this Bill is concerned?
THE EARL OF CLARENDON: Let me explain a little further. In so far as this forced labour is concerned, it has only been used once in Kenya, and if I read aright the explanation given in another place by the Secretary of State, I think it was that in no case is it ever used for more than 28 days in the year and it is only used when there is no available free labour of any kind, and then only when the local Government itself certifies to the Secretary of State that the work upon which it is to be engaged is work of a public character and that no free labour can be utilised. Then only is it that the Secretary of State is authorised to issue a certificate for such labour.
LORD PARMOOR: When forced labour is used, is it subject to the terms of the Convention?
THE EARL OF CLARENDON: I presume it is, though I cannot definitely answer that question now. Then the noble Lord dealt with the Report of the Governors' Conference in East Africa. I will not follow him into his question to me about the tax on cattle because it does not seem to me to be particularly relevant to the subject matter of this debate; but I should like to say one thing about the passage he quoted from Sir Edward Grigg's speech dealing with the question of the progress of the natives. I think the noble Lord must have misread or rather misinterpreted that passage, and I should like to quote one sentence from just before the passage mentioned by the noble Lord, where these words occur: "I refer to the vast range of questions born of the quickening of Africa by the touch of European progress." Sir Edward Grigg obviously was not referring to Kenya or to any particular part of Africa; he was dealing with the whole of Africa. He was not applying that to the progress of any particular part but to the whole Continent of Africa.
My noble friend Lord Ullswater asked me a question regarding loans to mandated territories. The answer to that question is, I think, that mandated territories are not in the same happy position as the Colonies inasmuch as they are not able to raise money on such advantageous terms as they could under the Colonial Stock Act. Therefore, if they receive a guarantee from the British Government it enables them to secure the best possible terms for money so lent. He also drew attention to the fact that I had intimated that the expenditure of this money would be incurred in so far as railways and roads are concerned, and he referred to the absence of water in Palestine. Probably the answer to that question is this: If the noble Lord will refer to the First Schedule he will find that the allocation of £745,000 is to be devoted to public buildings, telegraphs and telephones, surveys and minor works of development, which, I think, probably would include the question of water. That I think is all I need say in reply.
On Question, Bill read 2ª: Committee negatived.
Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended) Bill read 3ª, and passed.

MERCHANDISE MARKS (IMPORTED GOODS) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3ª.—(Viscount Peel.)
LORD CAWLEY: My Lords, I will not inflict a speech upon your Lordships and I need only detain you for a couple of minutes. The noble Viscount twitted me Yesterday with not having read the Bill and especially with knowing nothing about the Committees that are to be formed under it. The omission on my part to refer to those Committees was due to forgetfulness at the time, but I want to say now that I have a strong objection to those Committees. I am not, however, going to enter into all the objections against delegating the powers of Parliament to Committees. Doubtless, the President of the Board of Trade in appointing a Committee will do so to the best of his ability and will appoint those people that he thinks would act justly. But I can conceive that these Committees may be a source of grave danger and I do not think it is a system that ought to be used to any great extent. I spoke yesterday and the noble Viscount said that I had made a Second Reading speech. No doubt I did, but I thought that yesterday was the best stage of the Session at which to say what I did say. I do not wish to say anything further now except to observe how strongly I object to the Government relegating so much of its administrative work to Committees—work which ought to be performed on the floor of the House and not delegated to Committees the members of which nobody knows.
LORD ARNOLD: My Lords, like the noble Lord who has just spoken, I shall only intervene for a few moments. I would not have done so had it not been for certain remarks made by the noble Viscount, Lord Peel, yesterday and, I may say, it is quite agreeable to the noble Viscount that this matter which I am going to raise should be brought forward now. It is a matter of some importance and this is our last opportunity, but I will deal with it very briefly. The point has to do with the damage done to our re-export trade by the Safeguarding of Industries Acts. I gave figures last week showing how seriously that trade

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has been injured by the Duties under the Safeguarding of industries Acts. In some cases the trade appears to have been almost wiped out. What did the noble Viscount say in reply? He said last Thursday that the damage had been made good, or may have been made good, by increased trade in home production, but he not give any figures, and I think I can claim that yesterday I disposed of that contention by conclusions drawn from figures.
As regards the lace trade, I said it was very bad. Since then I have obtained a quotation from the Drapers Record, a recent issue of which says: "The lace trade is so bad, indeed, that things could not be worse." in replying yesterday the noble Viscount somewhat changed his ground, suggesting that my contention about the injury to the re-export trade would be altered a good deal if transhipments in bond were taken into account. Again the noble Viscount did not give any figures and said he was not able to do so. I gave the figures about trade, and to-day I ask the noble Viscount to give them about transhipments in bond. It may be that transhipments in bond will at first sight, to some degree, appear to help the noble Viscount in this matter, but about that I will say two things. First, even if he has the figures and gives them, even if it is the case that by taking transhipments in bond into account the damage done to the re-export trade as shown by the figures which I gave is reduced—it may be reduced possibly by 30 per cent. or 40 per cent. or 50 per cent. or even more—even so, the damage will remain very serious. I am not saying it is so reduced. Secondly, and this is very important, this system of transhipment in bond as regards these goods is of course due to the new Duties and it has a decidedly adverse effect upon trade as a whole and, in particular, upon London trade, because it means that goods which would come up from the docks to London warehouses and to London showrooms do not do so to the same extent, as formerly, but are kept in bond until they are transhipped.
Therefore buyers who come to London from all over the world to see and to choose goods do not have the same selection as formerly. That not only injures the entrepot trade but also, I am afraid, there is only too much reason to suppose
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that it does an injury to our export trade, certainly so far as lace is concerned. Not only has the re-export trade been very seriously injured, but export trade in lace has been cut down a great deal. This point, if I may say so, was made very well last Thursday by the noble Lord, Lord Emmott, to whose memory yesterday tributes were paid in your Lordships' House. He pointed out that it was vital to keep London as the market, in a sense, for the world for entrepot goods and, for the reasons I have explained, this transhipment in bond is going to mean that that will not be so with anything like the same degree as formerly. I would, therefore, suggest to the noble Viscount that taking everything into account this point about transhipment in bond is not really going to help him; in fact, would contend that it makes matters worse in regard to the total damage done to trade by the Safeguarding of Industries Acts.
If you are going to have these Duties, if there is going to be this messing and muddling and mischief done by tariffs, the Government ought really to consider whether they will not do here what was done in Germany—it may be so to-day—before the War. Hamburg was made what is called a free port and, if you are to guard against mischief of the kind which I have been outlining, the Government really ought to make London, or part of London, a free port. There should be other free ports in this country, because we have such a big seaboard. That would not by any means put the matter right, but it might do something to lessen the mischief which is growing and is likely to grow. I think I have put that quite clearly to the noble Viscount and I think also I have put it fairly. If he will give the figures I shall be much obliged.
VISCOUNT PEEL: My Lords, Lord Cawley declared that he has read the Bill. I charged him yesterday with not having read the Bill. The noble Lord assures me he has read the Bill and I therefore withdraw the accusation against him. Another point the noble Lord made was in regard to the Committees, which he said he did not like. Upon that I will only say this. The Committees are, of course, not the last word. When they have reported to the

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Department and if an Order is made, that comes before your Lordships' House, so that even though the members of the Committee be the obscure individuals to whom the noble Lord alluded—
LORD CAWLEY: I did not say they were obscure.
VISCOUNT PEEL: Well, whoever they be, obscure persons or not, your Lordships will have a full opportunity when the Order comes of pronouncing upon the Order as you, choose. I think everything is pretty well safeguarded. The only reason I objected to the noble Lord making what I called a Second Reading speech on the Report stage was that he should have given the House the benefit of his experience on the Second Reading and not have waited until your Lordships had approved of the Bill in principle. The noble Lord's speech would have been more effective if it had been made before your Lordships had pronounced upon the Bill on Second Reading.
The point raised by the noble Lord opposite, Lord Arnold, dealt with our re-export trade in connection with the lace trade and also with the silk trade. I am not very well posted at the present moment to reply as regards the lace trade, bat I happened to be at Nottingham recently and I was informed that the lace trade was suffering, not because the lace produced was not good but because the fashion was declining among women of having lace curtains to the same extent as they formerly used to make use of them. With regard to the specific question the noble Lord asked me—namely, whether I could give figures about the transhipment trade—I enquired yesterday if I could obtain them, but I have not been able to get them and I very much regret that I have not. The noble Lord's point was, of course, that the re-export trade has suffered very heavily, but I tried to point out that, if the re-export trade went on under another name, then we had not suffered very heavily. As I say, I have not got these figures, but the Customs authorities who have been consulted say that large quantities of such goods which were formerly included in the re-export figures are now dealt with by transhipment under bond and that so far as information is avail-
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able it seems that the increase in transshipment of silk and other things under bond since the Duties came into force accounts for a large part of the decrease in the recorded figures of re-exports of such goods.
The noble Lord raised a further point as to whether the transhipment of goods was a really useful substitute for the re-export of goods, and on that point discussed the interesting question whether the Port of London should be a free port as Hamburg was in the old days. That is a large question which I am glad to be able to refer to my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade. But this discussion, though a very interesting and important one, is one which I do not think is really relevant to the Bill actually before us because in that case a Duty is levied on the silk, the Duty has to be assessed and paid, and that, of course, must mean a certain amount of delay, though I believe when the matter gets into working order the trade passes very rapidly through the Customs. But here there is no question of a Duty being levied at all. Here, it is only a question of marking goods, and all that the merchant has to do is to give a bond that the goods are for re-export. Then they pass quite rapidly through the Customs. There is no Duty levied and there is no delay. Even if there was any delay in the original setting up of the Silk Duties in the matter of levying Duties on goods passing through the Customs, that would not apply to this case, because, as I say, you have only to sign this bond and the whole matter is dealt with at once and there is no further trouble and no further delay.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, the figures to which the noble Viscount has referred will be very interesting, and though I can understand that he is not able to give the full details this afternoon, I rise to ask whether he would be good enough to consider some method of making them public at an early date, whether by communicating them in a letter to the Press or having them published in a Paper for circulation amongst members of your Lordships' House. I can assure him that these are matters of very real interest and if the figures were laid on the Table of the House I

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am sure some method might be found by which your Lordships could secure copies even during the Recess.
VISOUNT PEEL: I shall be glad to consult my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade on that point.
On Question, Bill read 3ª.
Clause 2:
Power to require indication of origin in the case of certain imported goods.
2.—(1) After an inquiry in relation to goods of any class or description has on a reference from the appropriate department been held by a committee appointed for the purposes of this Act (in this Act referred to as "a committee").…
LORD MUIR MACENZIE LORD MUIR MACENZIE moved, in subsection (1) to leave out "(in this Act referred to as? a, committee.?)" The noble Lord said: My Lords, the three Amendments which stand on the Paper in my name are really one Amendment. They are pure drafting, purely verbal, and I believe the noble Viscount opposite is prepared to accept them. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, lines 33 and 34. leave out ("(in this Act referred to as? a committee?)").—(Lord Muir Mackenzie.)
VISCOUNT PEEL: My Lords, I accept the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 10 [Interpretation]:
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 22, at end insert ("?Committee' means a committee appointed for the purposes of this Act").—(Lord Muir Mackenzie.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 12 [Expenses]:
Amendment moved—
Page 13, lines 31 and 32, leave out ("appointed for the purposes of this Act").—(Lord Muir Mackenzie.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Bill passed, with the Amendments, and returned to the Commons.

ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3ª.—(Viscount FitzAlan of Derwent.)
EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, this Bill is one of the Bills which have been rushed through this House with considerable velocity at the end of the Session—I think the Second Reading was only on Friday last—and I was not able to be here at the earlier stages. I noticed that it passed with general good will and practical unanimity through your Lordships' House, and I am afraid that my remarks may tend to cause a slight ripple in that passive pool of acquiescence. But I assure your Lordships it will only be a comparatively slight ripple. It is impossible for me to oppose a Bill of this kind, because it is a Bill which extends toleration to people for the practice of things in which they believe so long as they are not contrary to the general well-being of the people.
The whole fundamental conviction upon which I stand would make it impossible for me to oppose a toleration Bill of that kind, but I am inclined to drop a word or two to the noble Viscount opposite in charge of the Bill on the question of the toleration which is exercised by his own particular communion He made a speech on the Second Reading, with which I had a great deal of sympathy and which I read with great care, in which he frequently spoke of the advantages of toleration. I hope he will repeat that speech and repeat that attitude when we come to consider such questions as divorce and birth control, and that his communion will not seek to impose on those who do not share their religious beliefs and are not in agreement with them practices which they themselves have a right to insist upon among their own members. Let us have toleration on both sides if we are to have it at all. I hope this will be borne in mind later.
I received a marvellous pamphlet about this Bill called "Writing the Reformation off the Statute Book." I dare say it is partly writing the Reformation off the. Statute Book. At the time of the Reformation the fear of Rome was very real and very imminent and we know very well that under fear unwise legislation is passed and unwise things done. We are not in that position to-day and are not suffering from any of those appre-

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hensions. I read in that pamphlet a great many attacks upon the most rev. Primate, who I am sorry could not remain to such a late hour to-night, and with none of them do I in the least sympathise or agree. The only thing in the pamphlet which struck me as possibly true was that one of the dangers we have to look to is not perhaps from the Roman Catholic Communion for whose benefit this Bill is being passed, but from that bastard kind of subservient allegiance to Rome which has recently grown up and calls itself Anglo-Catholic, inside the English Church. These are the people the Church of England has to fear and, possibly, we have to fear in this country, people who follow somewhat humbly the Roman Church and wish they were allowed to be in its communion.
I do not think Parliament and the country has anything to fear from this Bill. It is true it is going to give permission for processions in the streets, which to some people, such as those who called themselves years ago Kensitites—I am glad we have not heard much of them lately—might be provocative and might be offensive. But I am pretty sure that in such cases processions would not take place and wanton offence would not be given. I really rise to say that in this matter I hope we shall have equal toleration extended by the Church for whose benefit this measure is to be passed.
VISCOUNT FITZALAN OF DERWENT: My Lords, in reply to the remarks of the noble Earl, I am afraid I can hold out no hope to him whatever that, however tolerant we may become, there will be any change in our attitude with regard to divorce. The laws of our Church regarding that have gone on for a considerable period, and they are likely to continue. Otherwise I should like to thank the noble Earl for the kind words he has used in general in regard to the Bill. I would like to remind him, however, with regard to what he said about processions that there is nothing new in this Bill, and that there is no alteration in the law regarding them.
On Question, Bill read 3ª and passed.

HOUSING (RURAL WORKERS) BILL.
Amendment reported (according to Order).
Clause 2 [Power of local authorities to make grants or loans]:
VISCOUNT GAGE VISCOUNT GAGE moved, at the end of subsection (5), to insert:
"Provided that—

(i) where loans are to be made to the same person in respect of two or more dwellings, those loans may, if it is so agreed between that person and the local authority, be secured by a single mortgage charged on all the dwellings jointly, and where two or more loans are so secured this subsection shall have effect as if the several loans constituted a single loan and as if the expression 'the dwelling' included a reference to the several dwellings in respect of which the loans are made; and

(ii) if so agreed as aforesaid, a loan may be secured on lands of which the site of the dwelling in respect of which the loan is being made forms part, but nothing in this provision shall authorise the local authority to lend more than the sum which they would have been authorised to lend had the loan been secured only on the dwelling."

The noble Viscount said: My Lords, the Amendment that I have to move at this stage may appear long, but in reality it is comparatively unimportant and will not, I think, call for much criticism from your Lordships. The first paragraph of the proposed proviso is intended to enable an owner who obtains assistance by way of loans in respect of more than one dwelling to give security by means of a single mortgage, and it is anticipated that this will avert the expense of a number of separate conveyancing transactions. The second paragraph is intended to enable an owner who is obtaining a loan to include in the security that he gives to the local authority land other than that which forms the site of the dwelling. This proviso is thought to give a little extra elasticity to the local authorities, and it may be convenient in the case of cottages standing on large estates.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 27, at end insert the said proviso.—(Viscount Gage.)
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, I have very carefully studied the proposed Amendments, and I entirely agree with the noble Viscount that they are both good Amendments in themselves and will really make it more easy to carry out the business. Everybody desires that a Bill of this kind should be as simple

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as possible and should not lead to legal expenses. I heartily support both the noble Viscount's Amendments, and I think that they improve the Bill.
VISCOUNT GAGE: I am much obliged to the noble and learned Lord.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 8 [Application to Scotland]:
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, my Amendment to this clause is consequential.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 34, leave out from ("accordingly") to the end of the paragraph.—(Viscount Gage.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended), Bill read 3ª, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

PRISONS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Read 3ª (according to Order), and passed.

CORONERS (AMENDMENT) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day read for the consideration of Commons Amendments.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendments be now considered. I have gone through them very carefully and I am prepared to advise your Lordships to agree to all of them. If need be, I will explain any Amendment as to which any noble Lord raises a question.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS.
[The references are to Bill No. 38.]
Clause 1, page 1, line 22, leave out ("an") and insert ("a mayor")
Clause 1, page 1, line 24, leave out ("an") and insert ("a mayor")
Clause 1, page 2, line 7, leave out ("an") and insert ("a mayor")
Clause 14, page 9, line 33, leave out subsection (2), and insert:
("(2) Subject to the provisions of any rules made under this Act an order of a
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coroner authorising the burial of a body upon which he has decided to hold an inquest may be issued at any time after he has viewed the body.")
Clause 21, page 13, line 19, after ("him") insert ("in writing").
Clause 22, page 14, line 44, after ("deceased") insert ("but such medical practitioner or other person shall have the right, if he so desires, to be represented at any such post-mortem examination").
Clause 23, page 15, line 10, leave out ("one guinea") and insert ("one-and-a-half guineas for each day on which he is required to attend")
Clause 23, page 15, line 14, leave out ("one-and-a-half") and insert ("two")
Clause 23, page 15, line 20, leave out ("two guineas") and insert ("three guineas for the first day and one-and-a-half guineas for each subsequent day on which the practitioner is required to attend")
Clause 29, page 18, lines 20 and 21, leave out ("twenty-two of the Coroners Act, 1887") and insert ("twenty-three of this Act")
Clause 34, page 19, line 31, leave out ("January") and insert ("May")
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

INDUSTRIAL POSITION.
LORD WEIR LORD WEIR had given Notice to move to resolve, That this House views with the gravest anxiety the long continued state of unemployment, the decrease in productivity in some sections of national industry, and believes that improvement must come in the main from a better appreciation on the part of employers, employed and the trade unions of their respective, industrial responsibilities. The noble Lord said: My Lords, it is with a full appreciation of the difficulties, and with not a little misgiving, that, I venture to submit to your Lordships some considerations on the greatest and most vital domestic problem that confronts our country. I do so with the conviction that there is no subject calling more urgently for the attention of this House or for the earnest consideration which your Lordships have ever given to problems so vital and so bound up with the well-being of the people as that with which we are now faced. As my Motion indicates, I regard the extent of unemployment as the most significant index of our national well-being, and I

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choose this of intent, because the other evidence concerns material issues, while unemployment means suffering, misery and demoralisation of the human fabric of our nation. Though a cure may' lie in the adjustment of material things, the motive and the appeal are primarily and predominantly human.
Let us realise the actual situation by comparison. In pre-War days, taking the twenty-five years prior to 1914, our highest recorded unemployment was in 1908, the average for that year being 7·8 per cent, while the average for the twenty-five years was 4·3 per cent. For the last five years the average has been 12·6 per cent., the lowest was 10 per cent., and it is to-day as high as 13·4 per cent., excluding those unemployed in the coal mining industry. Very closely allied to this in its human aspect is the further fact that to-day there are some 2,500,000 men, women and children in receipt of Poor Law relief. Into all the social and economic effects and results of this I do not think that I need go, because they are fairly well known. Broadly, they are represented by a heavy reduction in national productivity, by a grim increase of the burdens on industry, on the Exchequer, on the taxpayer and the ratepayer, by an enhancement in the cost of domestic production, an increase in the cost of living and a severe handicap on our international selling ability.
The reflection on our national trading performance is that as compared with 1913 the trade adverse balance of imports over exports has increased by 260 millions per annum, disregarding the invisible export figures. Our coal ex-ports for the twelve months prior to the stoppage were 30 per cent. less than in 1913, and in iron and steel we were down 25 per cent. Perhaps more significant still, our imports for iron and steel had gone up by 24 per cent. But I will not weary your Lordships with figures, nor is it necessary, because the great outstanding fact is clear that to-day, with more than two millions additional population to maintain, and with possibly 100,000 more people in employment than before the War, the total productivity of the country, measured by any available test, is from 12 to 20 per cent. less than it was twelve years ago. This is the more disturbing
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in that the decrease is mainly associated with those export trades upon which our true national prosperity is dependent.
These facts have grave implications. On one side there is the human aspect of desperate anxiety, of a great measure of hardship, of intense dissatisfaction with the whole order of society that permits these disabilities; and on the other hand you have the dangerous reactions of reduced productivity on our national finances. It would be foolish to believe that this situation is entirely under our own control—there are world causes involved as well as domestic—but it would be equally foolish not to concentrate on some of the factors which appear definitely to lie within our own control, and this is my object to-day. Any survey discloses a more or less definite line of cleavage in prosperity. Services and industries mainly domestic are comparatively prosperous; industries, on the other hand, which rely on the export of a substantial portion of their products, are acutely depressed, and so acute is the depression, and so long continued, that it is no exaggeration to say that great British firms with world-wide reputations are facing desperate difficulties, or at least are confronted with reconstruction processes involving serious dislocation and financial hardship for many, all tending to weaken confidence and enterprise in great fields of industry at one time predominantly British.
It is frequently forgotten that these losses do not fall only on large well-to-do capitalists, but also on a veritable army of small investors, in many cases entirely dependant on these particular investments for their livelihood. That is a fair enough picture even before the General Strike and the coal stoppage. To-day, after these events, if I cared to draw another picture based on figures alone, it would of course assume an even darker aspect. The direct and indirect effects of these two industrial dislocations have been of the most deplorable character, and the bill of costs has still to be paid. But I am going to suggest that the General Strike and the coal stoppage have certain marked and peculiar characteristics associated with them and that, if these are once clearly distinguished and fully comprehended by the people of this country, it will be possible to say that lessons have been learned and

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evidence has been given which, if properly assimilated and applied, may well pave the way for the initiation of a great remedial national effort, and the return to better times. If we can diagnose correctly the real factors which produced the General Strike and maintained the coal stoppage for a period of seven months, if we can make these clear to the eyes of the people of Britain, then I believe we can look forward with some confidence to the future. I am a great believer in the fundamental common sense of the people of Britain, though their instincts are sometimes more rapid than their mental processes.
And now, before I turn to these lessons of which I have spoken and of that evidence on which we must base our judgment of the true sources of these present-day conditions, let me interpose a personal note. I am conscious that I am dealing with grave problems, with matters which may provoke acute and partisan criticism, and I speak to-day with the fullest sense of personal responsibility, not as a representative of employers, although I am myself an employer: I speak as a member of your Lordships' House, discharging the responsibilities attached to that position, and in virtue of any industrial experience I may have gained in a life spent in the service of industry.
I am aware that many others with qualifications greater than mine, both within the field of industry and outside of it, have made public their views, their suggestions, and their remedies for the industrial problems before us. From their contributions there emerge two outstanding desiderata for a return of our national prosperity and productivity. The first is termed "Peace in industry," and the second is that "There must be a combined effort on the part of employers and employed to secure by co-operation greater and more efficient production." With these I entirely agree. When I speak of more efficient production I really imply production at lower cost, but by this I definitely do not mean cost reduction by wage reduction. If my case depended on this I might well despair of the future.
In dealing with the first, "Peace in industry," my method will be to ask what has caused recent conflicts in
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industry. In the past the normal reason for such conflicts has been the workers' desire for better conditions and all that this implies, and the refusal of employers, for reasons which may or may not have been sound, to grant their claims. The legitimate claim of a British workman, as I see it, is that he is entitled to a growing improvement in his general condition of life. The advance of science and its applications to industry have increased the production of wealth, the mechanisation of process and transport has lightened the burden of manual labour; the education of all classes has effected a gradual change of outlook; and a widening of interest has made leisure more valuable. From all these developments the workman desires, and desires rightly, to profit. He expects, somehow or other, that his employer, or his trade union, or the Government will see to it that, as long as he does his work well and conscientiously, his lot will steadily he improved. I regard that as a fair, reasonable, and justifiable point of view or aspiration. It is, therefore, quite understandable if for a long time things go against him, that he will become discontented, that unrest will increase, and that conflict may ensue.
Now, let me apply the touchstone of fact to to-day's position, not with any view to discounting the aspirations I have mentioned, but to clarify the issues I desire to examine. Taking employed British workers in the sheltered industries and services, possibly some 8,000,000 in number, there is ample evidence that to-day they are substantially better off in every material sense than they were in 1913. Next, taking say 7,000,000 workers employed in the unsheltered industries exposed to the blast of foreign competition, to-day they possess as a whole a purchasing power not substantially inferior to that of 1913. I agree that the remuneration position of the latter has not improved, unless it be recorded in wage rates per hour, in which case it is higher. But, on the other hand, they are definitely much better off than the workers of all other Continental competing countries in purchasing power and working conditions, and they possess a system of social services to secure them against the contingencies of industrial life, without parallel in history, in scope, or in costliness. Coupled with this, their country

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is discharging her Debt obligations, bearing the burdens of defaulting debtors, maintaining a stable currency and a balanced Budget. In view of all these facts I feel justified in drawing the conclusion that the recent industrial trouble has not been brought about in the main through justifiable unrest as to working conditions.
Let me take the two recent conflicts. At the General Strike surely no one would suggest that the railway workers had any reasonable complaint as to their conditions. They are obviously much better off than ever they have been. Again, in the docks there is no evidence that the dockers were dissatisfied with the progress which has taken place in their conditions since the War. Now, in regard to coal, I will not traverse the old ground, other than to say that in April of this year, yes, even in July, 1925, the miners, if they had conducted their negotiations on a purely industrial basis, could have secured terms of settlement which represented the utmost possible under the economic conditions of the time, and on a system which embodies the sharing of results on a more practical basis than has been found feasible in many other industries.
With all this in front of us I ask your Lordships, why the conflict? The answer, I believe, is exemplified in the advice given by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald to the miners in the month of October, when he said: "Place your hopes for the future on the ballot box and not on strikes." In my view we have here evidence of what lies at the root of our industrial conflicts of the post-War years. We have the British workman told by an ex-Prime Minister and a responsible Leader of a Party that he must look for future prosperity in industry and the enhancement of his industrial conditions to political action. In quoting this as the advice of the Leader of the Socialist Party, I do not wish to imply that merely because it comes from such a source it must necessarily be dangerous and misleading; my contention is that industrial conditions can wily be made worse, and economic recovery retarded by whatever Party shapes its labour policy with the ballot box in view.
The possibility of achieving prosperity in industry lies almost entirely in the
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character of the people in industry, in their qualities of energy, self-reliance and intelligence, and so far as the solution of labour problems is concerned, in the faith of the two parties in each other. Whenever that faith is deliberately sapped by a third party claiming to hold a specific for improvement in the lot of one of the others, then an alien element of real danger has crept into industry. At no time has it been more important than to-day that the two parties should work together freely and with mutual confidence. In almost every sphere, research and enterprise have prepared the way for fresh advances, given industrial peace and industrial co-operation. The chemist, the metallurgist, the technician, yes, even the great industrial leaders, are blazing fresh trails and opening new fields of industry and new forms of employment in existing industries. A continuous change such as I have indicated, responsive to fresh discoveries and new invention is the healthiest condition for our industries, but it demands a flexibility and an accommodation both in the employer and the employee which only their intimate relationship can bring about—a relationship which can only he transformed and injured by the participation of third parties.
I think it is singularly unfortunate that to-day the Socialist Party holds out among the chief of its inducements the bribe of better industrial conditions. So far as I am aware there is no single attribute in human character which legislation can develop to make industry prosperous. Successful production can only be assured by the acceptance of their full responsibilities by both parties, by the enterprise and intelligent direction of the employer, and by the conscientious and contented service of the worker. In the past, to make the employer discharge certain of his responsibilities, the trade unions came into existence, and they played a valuable part in building up satisfactory industrial conditions and, so far as I am concerned and so far as all thinking employers are concerned, the trade unions have still legitimate and useful functions to discharge, which I hope they will long continue to do.
But no one associated with industry can fail to appreciate the changes which have come over trade union policy and trade union practice. On the purely industrial aspect the trade unions have

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failed as a whole to adapt themselves to the continuous change and rebirth at work in most of our industries. They have displayed a rigidity and lack of vision which have obstructed and retarded improvements in method, to the injury, ultimately, of their own interests. As tools of the extremists and as political weapons co-operation has in numerous cases been the furthest thing from their thoughts, and it is quite useless to deny that they have been used as the forcing house of class feeling and of class warfare, while the avowed aim of many of their officials is the overthrow of the existing structure of society. The complaints of the inefficiency and shortcomings of the existing system may be many, but I suggest that it is poorly realised how largely these deficiencies are caused by the action, corporate and individual, of those who are actively opposed to that system. That the system functions at all under its present handicaps is a tribute to its essential merits and to its adaptability.
Suggestions have been made that what is called a truce should be established for five years, or some such period. This sounds admirable, but it seems to me to connote an entirely mistaken attitude; it assumes a state of hostility, and at some date a temporary cessation with the forces still in being, and I feel that this phraseology of the armed camp must be departed from. Round the conference table on neither side should industrial conditions be settled as concessions for the moment, or as in a game in which step by step encroachments are prepared at one stage to be pushed home at a later. Industrial settlement must be agreed as something which will help the worker, help the employer and his industry, and lead to improvement in stability and efficiency.
In the General Strike and the coal stoppage, we see the real outcome of the policy of political trade unionism acting intentionally or unintentionally with revolutionary aims. What has been the result of that policy? Surely the greatest blow to legitimate trade unionism and to the British workers' conditions and to the prospects of trade recovery which could possibly have happened. I have the privilege of knowing many trade union leaders who have done great things for their men, thinking always of the
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industrial interests. I know they have had misgivings as to political association; I know they have succumbed halfheartedly to the temptations and allurements of lending their industrial influence, or being forced to do so in support of the new policy. To-day they know that their misgivings were sound.
Let me mention one class or section which has done infinite harm. They are not trade union leaders, they have no experience of leading any one; they sit and write about the ideal conduct and direction of industry as if it were a game, as if technical problems were propositions in euclid; as if human nature were invariable and inert; they regard industry as they would a problem in chess, then tell those who have spent all their lives in it and in learning its complexities that they are incompetent. Fertile in fault finding and with an affectation of knowledge which they do not possess, they set themselves in books and papers and lecture hall to disseminate their crudities of thought and partisan sophistries. Given real responsibility for the conduct of any industry they would ruin it in a month; they have played and are playing their mischievous part in promoting and fanning industrial strife.
With these and many other factors operating against the recovery of a better spirit in industry what can we do to effect improvement? Let me say to the employer, to the workman and to his trade union: "For industrial recovery, put not your trust in politics." Let me suggest a moratorium. For the purposes of this it must be recognised that political views of all shades can be sincerely held, and in some cases respected no matter how they may differ from one's own. No one denies that the existing order of society has its limitations; and we may believe that these can better be remedied one way than another. But surely our first consideration should be to ensure employment and the means of livelihood to those who are suffering hardship and demoralisation to-day. When we have first restored healthful activity and material comfort to our people, we can then consider more clearly and with infinitely greater hope, the sufficiently complex problems of adjustment to our respective points of view.
From this, however, I must exclude those who declare themselves bent on wrecking the machine at any cost, believing that from the chaos and destruction of existing institutions they can establish some new order which they cannot even define—from these extremists giving their allegiance only to the declared enemies of our country no help can be expected: with them no reason can hope to prevail. But from all men of good will intent on repairing the damage wrought by evil counsel, by alien corruption, and by a mistaken sense of loyalty to hidebound and unintelligent leadership, it should be possible to bring together in one Council Chamber a few men capable of concentrating on the industrial necessities of the time, apart entirely from political considerations. Men of good intent not coming as delegates to voice an official policy dictated to them, not representing organisations, but coming together as practical men to seek a solution of practical questions, these to my mind can make the best beginning.
The unfortunate tendency of recent years to over-organisation has affected both the employers and the men; regimentation on both sides has produced a rigidity and dependence on by-laws, agreements and precedents not readily adaptable to the changing conditions essential to the success of modern industry. Therefore, I do not suggest but would even deprecate the creation of new machinery, and propose, therefore, unfettered discussion as a necessary preliminary. On such a basis and with good will and sincerity on either side, I believe it may be possible to come to a common understanding which would enable a better working atmosphere to be created and to permeate not only the official counsels el industry but the shops and factories themselves, and restore that confidence in each other which is necessary for successful to-operation. I have indicated some of the disabilities which paralyse our action as employers, which prevent the recovery of prosperity, and perpetuate unemployment; I have indicated the lines on which a movement might be made, and I believe the time is ripe for it. I can only hope that the recognition of this opportunity will
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not be allowed to pass without at least an attempt being made towards reaching the basis of what I would call a common industrial creed which will make for greater social happiness and national peace.
Moved to resolve, That this House views with the gravest anxiety the long continued state of unemployment, the decrease in productivity in some sections of national industry, and believes that improvement must come in the main from a better appreciation on the part of employers, employed and the trade unions of their respective industrial responsibilities.—(Lord Weir.)
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD): My Lords, I am quite sure that this House owes a deep debt of gratitude to the noble Lord who has just sat down for bringing this matter before its consideration and particularly for the manner in which he has done so. I can only express my own personal regret, a regret which I am sure will be shared by every member of your Lordships' House, that owing to the exigencies of public business his Motion should have come on at such an hour as not to enable him to have an audience at all comparable to the importance of the subject or to the admirable way in which it has been introduced.
I particularly welcomed his statement that he spoke as a member of your Lordships' House rather than as a representative in any sense of the employers' side of industry. I have always felt that your Lordships' House has an opportunity to perform great service on the industrial question. It is quite true, and deeply to be regretted in my judgment, that there are no representatives of the working class amongst your Lordships, nor are there a large number of employers, but it is just for that reason that I think your Lordships can take up this question with a great deal of impartiality and discrimination and may easily be able to tender advice to the country which will be of the greatest possible service in the settlement of this very difficult and supremely important question.
My noble friend began by emphasising the extremely serious position of industry at the present moment. No one

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would, of course, care to deny that, for a moment and the figures which he gave as to the percentage of unemployment were indeed very striking. It does show that there is something very wrong with industry not only to find that there is such a large measure of unemployment but to find that, even when allowance has been made for that, the productivity of this country is very much less than it ought to be. It is not because I desire to minimise in any way the seriousness of what my noble friend said that I think it right to remind your Lordships—he did mention it, but perhaps did not dwell with quite sufficient emphasis upon it—that after all a great part, the greatest part, I think he would admit, of our industrial difficulty at the moment is due undoubtedly to the grave economic dislocation which was caused by the War. It is not necessary to elaborate so obvious an observation as that. I only make it for this reason, that though the position is serious nothing is gained by exaggerating its seriousness and much of the very depressing conditions which at present prevail will, I hope and believe, pass away as economic stability is recovered, not only in this county, but all over the world, and the last remnants of the effect of the War gradually disappear.
My noble friend went on to inquire—and that is the most important part of his speech—what can be done and said, with great truth, that in order to ascertain what remedy is practicable, the first thing is to be quite sure of the disease from which we are suffering. Putting aside then what may be called, in a sense, the accidental causes due to economic dislocation following upon the War, what is it that really is wrong at the present time? It is quite unnecessary to argue that something is wrong. That was not only admitted, but strongly asserted by my noble friend. He evidently thinks that what is most wrong at the moment is the incursion of politics into industry. In one sense I quite agree with him, but even here we must be careful to distinguish exactly what we mean. It is no doubt true that the working class is now possessed of great political power. It is no doubt true that the voters are inclined to use their power in order to carry through changes in legislation which they believe will be of advantage to them in their lives. I do
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not think that any legitimate complaint can be made of that. Every class that has had power in this country has in its time done the same and certainly, as far as I am concerned, I would most fully admit that much of modern legislation, which no doubt owes its origin to the inspiration of the working-class voter, has been on the whole of great advantage not only to him but to the community as a whole.
In that sense, therefore, I do not think my noble friend would suggest that you can complain of the incursion of the ballot box into industrial problems. I do not think that is what he meant at all. He meant what our American friends call "playing politics"—that is to say, using in this case industrial questions, and industrial difficulties, not with a view of solving those difficulties and finding a remedy for the actual evils which they display, but for promoting some quite different political and Party political cause. It is disastrous not only to industry but to every department of human life where that procedure is employed. In some countries it is employed in connection with foreign affairs, where it is perhaps even more disastrous than when it is applied in the case of industry. The worst form of that is that which my noble friend described as wrecking the machine at any cost, where you have the kind of man who disapproves of what he would describe as the capitalist organisation of industry and goes about to render that organisation impracticable, puts sand in the works of industry, is anxious not to improve the condition of the worker but to make it still worse so that he will provoke him to demand far-reaching and revolutionary changes. I cannot acquit Mr. Cook and other leaders of that type of having played politics in that very disastrous, base and heartless fashion.
So far as that is a full account of what has recently taken place I should join with my noble friend in the warmest words of condemnation which the English language would afford. I am bound to add that I am not convinced that the desire for improvement of the material conditions of labour has had so little to do with what has recently occurred as my noble friend appeared to think. He said definitely that in his opinion these were not due to justifiable unrest as to working conditions. Well, I doubt whether that is

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so. I noticed a statement published in The Times the other day and drawn from some official source, which estimated at over 50 per cent. the strikes which in the last sixteen years have been caused through differences about wages and to that we must add I forget what percentage, but a considerable one, as to working conditions and so on.
Though it may be perfectly true—it is true, no doubt—to say that in many respects the workers' condition now is a great deal better than it was some years ago, yet that is not a complete account of the matter. There is no doubt—I do not think one can resist the evidence—that there was at the back of the recent coal strike a perfectly genuine though mistaken belief that wages were being unduly lowered in relation to economic facts. It is quite true that I do not myself share that opinion. I believe that a proper appreciation of the facts would show that the proposals made by the employers were absolutely necessary if the industry was to be carried on, broadly speaking, and it is possible that my noble friend may be right in saying that the leaders of the workmen knew that perfectly well. As to that I express no opinion. Some of them may have done so, some may not. But the thing that impresses me—I admit I am in this respect an onlooker—is the impossibility of convincing the workmen in this and in many other cases of the truth of the economic facts alleged. I cannot help feeling, if my noble friend will allow me to say so—in fact, I do not know that he will disagree—that fundamentally the great trouble, that which causes almost all of the difficulty, nine-tenths of it, is the condition of suspicion which prevails between the employers and their workmen in so many cases.
I am not, of course, suggesting it does so in every case, but in many cases it is that atmosphere of suspicion which makes a workman absolutely decline to believe what he is told by his employer. I am exposed to the observation that I am not an employer of labour myself, though professionally I have been brought into contact with a good many of those who are; but I did once have a little experience of my own which, if the House will allow me, I should like to recount as an example of what I mean. It does not refer to what is ordinarily
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called industry but to agriculture, but it will illustrate the kind of thing that I have in mind. When I was in the House of Commons I sat as member for an agricultural constituency, and one summer I went round the constituency with the object of interviewing the labourers apart from their employers and of finding out what that section of my constituents really thought. I remember that on that, or some similar occasion, I talked about this very question of wages to a long line of men—eight or ten of them—who were in the employment of a gentleman who, I am sure, was on the whole a good employer. I pointed out to them that the reduction of wages which was then threatened and unfortunately in progress was absolutely necessary in consequence of the great agricultural depression that had come after the boom just after the War. They absolutely declined to believe it, they would not hear of it.
I told them various facts which were within my knowledge and I hope they thought me a well-meaning man—at any rate, they were very polite as Englishmen almost always are—but they had no kind of belief in anything that I said. I remember they said, as conclusive proof that I was wrong, that the farmer had recently set up a new motor car. As a matter of fact, that had nothing to do with the matter and could be explained quite well, but that was the kind of attitude of mind that I found. They absolutely refused to believe what I said. I remember in the same peregrination meeting a number of them in a schoolroom. The farmers had been good enough to allow them to come from their work to meet me, of course in the absence of employers. There were thirty or forty of them on that occasion. I began with what I regarded as a platitude, that of course there were good employers and bad. Thereupon there was a general cry from the whole room: "Not here, they are all bad"—which was quite untrue from the ordinary point of view. It was a considerable shock to me for the moment, but that illustrates the kind of thing I mean.
Perhaps I might give one story that as told me which explains this kind of thing, assuming it was true, and I have every reason to believe it was true. It was told me by a person of strong Con-

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servative opinion who, I believe, was in a position to know the facts. This was the story that was told me. There was a dispute about wages in a big industrial works. The employers met the men, they argued the point, they gave reasons why it was impossible for the business to afford what the men desired, and so well did they argue that the men agreed and accepted the view of the employers. That was the result of the discussion. The men went back to work, or continued their work, and three months afterwards the dividend of the company was declared at the rate of 30 per cent. That is the story told to me and it is that kind of thing—though I believe that to be a very rare and unusual experience—which produces suspicion, just as the attitude of men like Mr. Cook naturally produces, inevitably produces, the most profound suspicion on the other side.
Now, I cannot help feeling—I hope my noble friend will not disagree with me in this—that the real root cause of the trouble is this suspicion and distrust. I was therefore particularly glad to hear him make that very striking and interesting offer of some kind of free and open discussion between, I will not say representatives, but between important individuals of the two classes. I most heartily agree with him in his rejection of such a term as "truce." That is an entirely wrong way of looking at it. We want a permanent settlement of this question if we can get it. We want to go to the root causes of the trouble. It is not for the Government to do anything except to express the warmest sympathy with my noble friend's suggestion and wish him God speed in his efforts to bring about such a round-table conference. I will only say, if I may, addition that we must be realistic in this matter. A great number of statements have been made in public recently in a great number of organs of public opinion breathing the most earnest desire for co-operation, for peace in industry and for good will. They are all excellent things in themselves but, if they lead to nothing practical and definite in the end, they may easily do more harm than good.
The old, hard English proverb must never be forgotten: "Fine words butter no parsnips." That is too true, and I venture very respectfully to ask my noble friend whether he is quite sure that the
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whole root of the trouble is in the desire of the workman to better his material position—whether that is the whole of his aspiration and desire in this matter. I must honestly confess to a certain amount of doubt upon that point. I do not think that the whole question will be solved nowadays by saying to the workman: "We will ensure that you will always get good wages and that your material position will gradually grow as the prosperity of the industry grows." That, is a great thing, but I am not sure that it is everything and I am not sure in my heart of hearts that it is the main thing. I cannot help feeling that we have to dig a little deeper than that if we are really to reach a solution of this question. We have, somehow or other, to bring about—I am sorry to use words which are already too hackneyed, but no other words occur to me—a sentiment of partnership in business between employers and employed. I do not believe that you will get permanent peace unless you can get that mental attitude. I do not believe that it is possible. If that is accepted, if that is the ideal that you set before you, if you desire to get the workmen into the state of mind of partners in the business, you must consider how far you can give them the position and, still more, the responsibilities of partners.
If my noble friend succeeds in getting his round-table discussion, that will be a body infinitely more capable than I can presume to be of expressing an opinion and finding a solution of these troubles. I cannot help hoping that that conference will consider very carefully whether the time has not come to aim at such a reorganisation of industry as I have indicated. It means not only the ordinary share in profits, not even a share in capital, but some kind of voice in direction, not necessarily by membership of the board of directors—though that has been tried with great success in some cases—but some other method of bringing influence to bear, not so much on the day to day management of the concern as on its general direction. I am sure that something a that kind will have to be done before we can solve this question.
I think I could show, if it were germane to the temper of this discussion, that such a proposal is quite in consonance with the political opinions of

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any of the three Parties. I believe it is, but I prefer not to put it on that ground this evening. I prefer to say: In the end, what else is there to be done? In the end, unless you can produce this real co-operation between employers and employed, unless you can make them feel that they are partners in a common enterprise, whatever may be your future political aspirations, whatever may be your future ideas as to economic organisation of industry, unless you can produce that result, surely, in view of the very serious figures and reasons given to us by my noble friend at the beginning of his speech, it may well happen that, before you can introduce your new economic system, whatever it may be, the industry of the country will have ceased to exist.
I remember that years ago, when I was keenly interested in this problem of co-partnership, when it had just come before me professionally as counsel for the South Metropolitan Gas Company, I went to see the Board of Trade on the subject. I was received by the officials of that great Department and by the gentleman who was then—for it was before the days of the Ministry of Labour—at the head of the Labour Department of the Board of Trade. We discussed the matter; they, of course, knew a great deal more about it than I did. I urged it upon them. They said: "A great deal of what you say is true, and no doubt there are grave difficulties." At last the chief of the Department made use of a striking expression. He said: "I do not know whether co-partnership is the solution of our industrial troubles, but of this I am quite certain, that, if it is not the solution, then no solution exists." I can only Say in conclusion that the Government are very glad to accept the Motion of my noble friend and, as I say, to express their warmest thanks to him for having brought the matter before the House and their hope that he will not weary in well-doing in seeking a solution to these terrible problems.
LORD THOMSON: My Lords, it is not my intention to detain the House for more than a few minutes, but I feel that someone should reply from this Bench, and being that anomalous type, a Labour Peer—though not a trade unionist, as the noble Viscount has pointed out; but
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I happen to enjoy the privilege of the acquaintance of many trade unionists—I should like to put certain points of view. I may say that the noble Viscount has anticipated a great deal of what I was going to say, and with nearly all that he said I am in cordial agreement. The noble Lord, Lord Weir, while putting his case, I think, with very great fairness and in the least provocative manner, did leave on my mind the impression that the chief evil in the present situation was the fact that politics were mixed up with industry. I agree with the noble Viscount that that is not so, and in fact it is entirely not so. The noble Viscount rather qualified his objections to that statement, but I am entirely opposed to it, and I shall endeavour in a few sentences to show that the mixing of politics and industry is most essential to carry out what we all wish to effect.
I suppose it is an axiom that since the time when political equality was given to the masses of the people in this country they have used that political equality to achieve, as far as possible, economic and social equality. As the noble Viscount pointed out, right through the history of this country political means have been used to acquire economic power, and certainly reforms in industry which we enjoy to-day would never have been obtained without the vote of the workers. All the reforms in the past have been opposed—I do not say by people of the stamp of Lord Weir—but the opposition has been overcome by the vote of the ever-increasing number of voters. Then there is another point. The noble Lord, Lord Weir, appears to think that this political element in industry is a source of danger. Personally I think it is a safety valve. It is a sentiment of political helplessness that makes working class people bitter, so far as I know. I have known so many trade unionist representatives in another place who have become extraordinarily moderate and reasonable since their arrival in that place. The reason is not that they have altered their convictions—on the contrary—but that they have learnt that it is better to reason things out, and to do what the noble Lord himself suggests, that is, take things to the conference table as often as possible.
I would remind him, moreover, that these evils are not purely economic, nor

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are they susceptible to purely economic solutions. If the last dispute had been susceptible to an economic solution, pure and simple, can your Lordships imagine that the Government would not have gladly given £25,000,000 to avoid the loss involved to the trade of this country? The noble Lord thought that the trouble is that when a Government interferes with what ought to be two partners in industry, that Government intervention prolongs the dispute. It has been pointed out countless times during the last eight months that never, in one certain industry, have the representative bodies of the two sides been able to agree. I am not talking of individual employers in the coal industry, but has there ever been a real agreement, or anything more than a truce, between the mineowners' association and the miners' federation? I do not think so, and since this industry, like other industries, is vital to the prosperity of the country, surely some political element should come in, and should be there to bring them together, if possible.
The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, went on to talk about co-partnership. Personally I am entirely in agreement with that as an intermediate settlement, but I would like to point out that when I consult my friends in the trade union movement I do not find a very great readiness to accept even that solution, and I submit that the reason is ethical. There are many sincere and decent and moderate men in the trade union movement to-day, who genuinely detest the system of industry for profit. They say that if they go in for co-partnership with the employer they are merely extending a system of which they disapprove, and becoming accomplices in wrongdoing, and they advocate the creation, by political means, of a state of affairs where the lion of industry will lie down with the lamb, and there will be no exploitation of anybody. Personally I do not look forward to such an ideal state, and I would welcome any system like that to which the noble Viscount referred. I, indeed, personally found little on which to differ seriously from the noble Viscount, and I would like to point out to Lord Weir that I have not been traversing his views from any political hostility, but merely from a desire to help him to that goal which I know he has in mind. I am convinced, however, that
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we have first to clear away some misconceptions about industry, and I am sure that if the people for whom I am speaking could get round a table, a speech such as the noble Lord has made would get for him the cordial sympathy of a good many workers in the Labour movement.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK: My Lords, I shall not detain the House for literally more than two minutes, but I wish to emphasise, if I may, what the noble Viscount has said, and the way in which he expressed his belief that the difficulties to-day were not due merely to questions of improving the material position of the worker, his wages or his hours, but that there was a deeper trouble to be dealt with. My own experience of working people, for a considerable period of years thoroughly endorses this. I remember, again and again, working men, who have been thinking out the question as carefully as possible, telling me that the real matter at issue was not so much hours or wages, but was a question of status. I recollect in particular a man who could by no kind of means be regarded as revolutionary, saying that when he went into his work he left his individuality outside and became simply a number, and that however much you may shorten hours and improve wages you will not have dealt with the centre of the matter until you improve the status of the worker by giving him some real share in the work in which he is actively engaged. I agree with every word that the noble Viscount has uttered, and most cordially support what has been said by the noble Lord who moved the Resolution, when he emphasised the importance of closer co-operation between employer and employed. I am convinced, however, that yon will never get this until greater efforts have been made to meet the difficulty about the status of the worker.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ELECTRICITY (SUPPLY) BILL.
Returned from the Commons with certain Amendments made by the Lords agreed to, one Amendment agreed to with Amendments, one disagreed to but an Amendment made to the words restored

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to the Bill, one disagreed to but an Amendment proposed in lien thereof, and certain other Amendments disagreed to for which disagreement they assign Reasons.
PENAL SERVITUDE BILL.
FORMERLY
CRIMINAL JUSTICE (INCREASE OF PENALTIES) BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Lords Amendments agreed to.

WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY (BLIND PERSONS FACILTIES) BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Lords Amendments agreed to.
SALE OF FOOD (WEIGHTS AND MEASURES) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: My Lords, before the House adjourns I ought to say that we must meet at eleven o'clock tomorrow to conclude our business. I shall have also to move a Motion slightly altering the order in which our business will be taken. It is proposed to take the first two Notices standing on the Paper, then the Commons Amendments, and then the debate on broadcasting. The point is that we roust give the Commons time to consider the Amendments sent to them by this House, and to have any transactions between the two Houses that may prove to be necessary. That cannot be done unless there is some slight alteration in the order of business, but I am sure that will be for the general convenience. The Royal Commission will be taken at half-past two o'clock.
House adjourned at ten minutes past eight o'clock.